A History of Freedom of Thought

“Thus freedom of thought, in any valuable sense, includes freedom of speech.””

— J. B. Bury

“كيف تتلون أفكار الناس الدينية تلونًا لا شعوريًا بروح العصر.””

— J. B. Bury

“The martyrs died for conscience, but not for liberty.””

— J. B. Bury

“Those who would suppress an opinion (it is assumed that they are honest) deny its truth, but they are not infallible. They may be wrong, or right, or partly wrong and partly right.””

— J. B. Bury

“Toleration means incomplete religious liberty.””

— J. B. Bury

“A new idea, inconsistent with some of the beliefs which he holds, means the necessity of rearranging his mind; and this process is laborious, requiring a painful expenditure of brain-energy. To him and his fellows, who form the vast majority, new ideas, and opinions which cast doubt on established beliefs and institutions, seem evil because they are disagreeable.””

— J. B. Bury

“And the greater part of most men’s knowledge and beliefs is of this kind, taken without verification from their parents, teachers, acquaintances, books, newspapers. When an English boy learns French, he takes the conjugations and the meanings of the words on the authority of his teacher or his grammar. The fact that in a certain place, marked on the map, there is a populous city called Calcutta, is for most [15] people a fact accepted on authority. So is the existence of Napoleon or Julius Caesar. Familiar astronomical facts are known only in the same way, except by those who have studied astronomy. It is obvious that every one’s knowledge would be very limited indeed, if we were not justified in accepting facts on the authority of others.””

— J. B. Bury