Free speech is the whole thing, the whole ball game. Free speech is life itself.
Interpretation
Free speech is essential for life and society.
In this quote, Salman Rushdie emphasizes the fundamental importance of free speech as a cornerstone of human existence and societal function. He conveys that the ability to express oneself freely is not just a right, but a vital component that sustains life, fosters dialogue, and shapes culture, making it indispensable to our humanity.
In practice
Citing this quote in a debate about the importance of protecting free speech rights.
I've been fascinated by Machiavelli since I was very young. I've always felt that he had a bad rap from history, and that he was actually a person quite unlike what we now think of as Machiavellian. He was a republican. He disliked totalitarian government.
Killing people because you don't like their ideas - it's a bad thing.
faith without doubt is addiction
I am clearly vulnerable to these more passionate and volatile unstable relationships. I am trying to not be so vulnerable.
In India, as elsewhere in our darkening world, religion is the poison in the blood. Where religion intervenes, mere innocence is no excuse. Yet we go on skating around this issue, speaking of religion in the fashionable language of 'respect.' What is there to respect in any of this, or in any of the crimes now being committed almost daily around the world in religion's dreaded name?
Reality is a question of perspective; the further you get from the past, the more concrete and plausible it seems - but as you approach the present, it inevitably seems more and more incredible.
Rarely do great beauty and great virtue dwell together.
Character is revealed through action.
We must suffer to the end, to the moment when we stop believing in suffering.
Canada will be a strong country when Canadians of all provinces feel at home in all parts of the country, and when they feel that all Canada belongs to them.
Every object you see before you at this moment -the walls, ceiling, and furniture, the book, your own washed hands and cut fingernails, bears witness to the colonization of Nature of Reason.
Capital is reckless of the health or length of life of the laborer, unless under compulsion from society.
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