The whole history of the progress of human liberty shows that all concessions yet made to her august claims have been born of earnest struggle. If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters.
— Frederick Douglass, An address on West India Emancipation (1857)
Tag Archives: speeches
Liberty to Know and Argue by Conscience
Areopagitica is regarded as one of the most eloquent defences of press freedom ever written.
Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties.
– John Milton, Areopagitica: A speech of Mr. John Milton for the liberty of unlicensed printing to the Parliament of England, 1644
Words of the Sentient 