The (con)fusion version of English Language for Europe !

The European Commission has just announced an agreement that English will be the official language of the EU - rather than German (the other possibility). 


As part of the negotiations, Her Majesty's Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement, and has accepted a 5-year phase-in of new rules which would apply to the language and reclassify it as EuroEnglish.


The agreed plan is as follows:


In year 1, the soft c would be replaced by s Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. The hard C will be replaced by 'k . This should klear up konfusion and keyboards kan now have one less letter. 


There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year, when the troublesome ph is replaced by f This will reduse fotograf by 20%.


In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. 


Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters, which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. 

Also, al wil agre that the horible mes of the silent 'e's in the language is disgrasful and they should eliminat them.


By year 4, peopl wil be reseptiv to lingwistik korektions such as replasing th with Z and w with v (saving mor keyboard spas).


During ze fifz year, ze unesesary o kan be dropd from vords kontaining ou and similar changes vud of kors be applid to ozer kombinations of leters. 


After zis tifz year, ve vil hav a reli sensibil riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubls or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi to understand ech ozer.


Ze drem vil finali kum tru!! 

( This or a similarly written  piece is attributed sometimes to anonymity or even Mark Twain. 

But  it seems that the basic source of these anonymous articles  is a piece by a writer named 

 W. K. Lessing (under the pseudonym Dolton Edwards), 

called "Meihem in Ce Klasrum", first published

 in a U.S. magazine called Astounding Science Fiction in 1946) His articles begins like this: (EXTRACT)

First published: 1946
MEIHEM IN CE KLASRUM by Dolton Edwards


    BECAUSE WE ARE STILL BEARING SOME OF THE SCARS OF OUR BRIEF SKIRMISH with II-B English, it is natural that we should be enchanted by Mr. George Bernard Shaw's current campaign for a simplified alphabet.


    Obviously, as Mr. Shaw points out, English spelling is in much need of a general overhauling and streamlining. However, our own resistance to any changes requiring a large expenditure of mental effort in the near future would cause us to view with some apprehension the possibility of some day receiving a morning paper printed in-to us-Greek.


    Our own plan would achieve the same end as the legislation proposed by Mr. Shaw, but in a less shocking manner, as it consists merely of an acceleration of the normal processes by which the language is continually modernized.


    As a catalytic agent, we would suggest that a National Easy Language Week be proclaimed, which the President would inaugurate, outlining some short cut to concentrate on during the week, and to be adopted during the ensuing year. All school children would be given a holiday, the lost time being the equivalent of that gained by the spelling short cut.


    In 1946, for example, we would urge the elimination of the soft c, for which we would substitute "s." Sertainly, such an improvement would be selebrated in all sivic-minded sircles as being suffisiently worth the trouble, and students in all sities in the land would be reseptive to- ward any change eliminating the nesessity of learning the differense be- tween the two letters.) 

Two Poets, Two Poems, Two Continents... one common target..Husband!

Panna Naik (born 1933)  and Judith Viorst ( born 1931) – are two distinguished, octogenarian  lady writer/poets  from two different continents (but now living in one)  and both have written (at least) one poem each on the same subject: how do we in the family / society keep escalating our demands  from  our womenfolk in terms of gearing  up and rising to our expectations , till it culminates into a heart-wringing desperate cry  !

First,  Judith Viorst‘s poem titled  “Self-Improvement Program.”

I’ve finished six pillows in Needlepoint,

And I’m reading Jane Austen and Kant,

And I’m up to the pork with black beans in Advanced Chinese Cooking.

I don’t have to struggle to find myselfPage 6

For I already know what I want.

I want to be healthy and wise and extremely good-looking.

I’m learning new glazes in Pottery Class,

And I’m playing new chords in Guitar,

And in Yoga I’m starting to master the lotus position.

I don’t have to ponder priorities

For I already know what they are;

To be good looking, healthy, and wise.

And adored in addition.

I’m improving my serve with a tennis pro,

And I’m practicing verb forms in Greek,

And in Primal Scream Therapy all my frustrations are vented.

I don’t have to ask what I’m searching for

Since I already know that I seek

To be good-looking, healthy, and wise.

And adored.

And contented.

I’ve bloomed in Organic Gardening,

And in dance I have tightened my thighs,

And in Consciousness Raising there’s no one around who can top me.

And I’m working all day and I’m working all night

To be good-looking, healthy, and wise.

And adored.

And contented.

And brave.

And well-read.

And a marvelous hostess,

And bilingual,

Athletic,

Artistic…

Won’t someone please stop me?

Now Panna Naik (http://pannanaik.com/):

She goes one step further in her poem dares the people around her and declares her independence and says:

I do not wish to be a emotional cuckoo  and keep singing in someone’s  intellectual cage, speak as they wish me to and dance like a serpent when a flute is played before me. I have wings and sky of my own.

I am my own master and then why need I be afraid of some one.

I do not wish to say ‘yes, yes’ and keep accommodating everyone around me, by speaking, walking, dressing, sleeping, socializing, doing everything everything  in exact  measure that has been cut out for me. I do not wish to be a cuckoo  and keep singing in someone’s  cage.

The poem ( in Gujarati) read thus:

Both the poets have excellently expressed their  sensitivity towards the  systematic enslavement of women in the society  under one  guise or the other. May be it is not true for all places and all times but it is most certainly true for several places even today.

As if to help us end this post on a lighter note, the same Judith Viorst has said elsewhere : “ When he is late for dinner and I know he must be either having an affair or lying dead in the street, I always hope he's dead.”  


And would she so easily let go her man? No way.  Judith writes elsewhere:  I could be such a wonderful wife to another wife's husband.


Perhaps both the lady poets can have a good laugh now!


And finally, time for one and all to chuckle to make the score : Love All!

Englsih Pronunciation - a very pleasant - but pure chaos!

A poem about English pronunciation.

“The Chaos” is a poetically explained , well-known  versified catalogue of  irregularities of English spelling and pronunciation, written by Gerard Nolst Trenité (1870-1946), also known under the pseudonym Charivarius. He was a dutch observer of English. It first appeared in an appendix to the author’s 1920 textbook "Drop Your Foreign Accent: engelsche uitspraakoefeningen." Ironically, while the pronunciation of his own surname is not obvious, he is best known in the English-speaking world for this poem.

(Recommended for Reading it Aloud):

Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse. 

I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer. 

Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it's written.) 

Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;  

Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.
Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,

Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;

One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.

Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.

Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation's OK
When you correctly say croquet, 

Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.
Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer. 

River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour. 

Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger, 

Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.

Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury. 

Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual. 

Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late. 

Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.
Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.

We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;

Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label. 

Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor. 

Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,

Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Compare alien with Italian,  

 Dandelion and battalion. 
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,

Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.
Face, but preface, not efface.  

Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.  

Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work. 

Pronunciation -- think of Psyche!
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won't it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?  

It's a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict. 

Finally, which rhymes with enough --
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!! 

Let an atheist remain an atheist..

Are you planning to convert some one who does not believe in God ?  

Osho strongly advises “Don’t” . 


We know Mulla Nasrudin as the most witty, inimitable character. But Osho victimizes him here:

A rich farmer had been trying desperately to marry off his daughters. One day he met Mulla Nasrudin.

”I have several daughters,” the farmer told the Mulla. ”I would like to see them comfortably fixed. And I will say this, they won’t go to their husbands without a little bit in the bank, either. The youngest one is twenty-three and she will take Rupees 25,000 with her. The next one is thirty-two, and she will take Rupees 50,000 with her. Another is forty-three and she will take Rupees 75,000 with her.”

”That’s interesting,” said Nasrudin. ”I was just wondering if you have one about fifty years old.

Mulla Nasrudin’s family was upset because the girl he was planning to marry was an atheist. ”We’ll not have you marrying an atheist,” his mother said.

”What can I do? I love her,” the young Nasrudin said.

”Well,” said his mother, ”if she loves you, she will do anything you ask. You should talk religion to
her. If you are persistent, you can win her over.”

Several weeks went by, then one morning at breakfast the young Mulla seemed absolutely brokenhearted.
”What’s the matter?” his mother asked. ”I thought you were making such good progress in your talks
about religion to your young girlfriend.”

”That’s the trouble,” said Nasruddin. "I overdid it.Last night she told me she was so convinced that she is going to study to be a NUN.”

Twin Poets: Kalapi of Gujarat and Keats of England :

In the princely state of Gujarat in western India, in 1874, poet Kalapi ( his pen name) was born in a royal family as Sursinh ji  Gohel. He had realized  in the early age that he was not  inclined towards the statecraft and politics and so, gave away his right to the throne to remain a poet!


Kalapi  died at a very young age of 26 in 1900 and is considered even after 100 years as the poet who gave us the most recitable and memorable couplets from his wonderful poems.


His twin brother poet John Keats was born in 1795 and died at a very young age of 26 in 1821. Robert Bridges (1844-1930) , a doctor by profession and poet by passion wrote that "If one English poet might be recalled to-day from the dead to continue the work he left unfinished on earth,  it is probably that  the crown would be set on the head of John Keats". 


As some critic has well said: "Reading Keats is a luxury, a rare chance to experience the English language as a work of art." 

So immersed was   Keats  in love that he wrote: I have been astonished that men could die martyrs for religion - I have shuddered at it. I shudder no more - I could be martyred for my religion - Love is my religion - I could die for that. 


Keats asserts that it's the imagination, not our expression of it, that is the most powerful  went on to write the famous lines: 


“Heard Melodies Are Sweet, but Those Unheard Are Sweeter”  and " A thing of beauty is a joy forever, its loveliness increases; it will never pass into nothingness."

The young poet wrote, rather prophetically boasted : 

"I would sooner fail than not be among the greatest",   

The poet and his work were reborn twenty-seven years after his death 

when the first biography of the English poet in 1848 and  

in our hearts shall live on and on.......!

Of the other twin - Kalapi  , it is a lesser known fact that he had a fan  in Mahatma Gandhi , who prayed regularly twice a day, be he alone, or in public or in jail.  A collection of Gandhi's  multi-religious, thoughtfully chosen and soul-elevating prayers "Ashram Bhajanavali"  is a very popular even today in thousands of homes. 

Gandhi  had chosen a poem by  Kalapi for inclusion his prayer book, but some one, who 'mis'understood it as a purely romantic poem advised  Mahatma Gandhi against its inclusion in a book full of prayers.   Repenting his mistake, that person confided in 1932 in his jail years to the  poet Umashankar Joshi that " I have done a great injustice to Kalapi by giving a wrong advice to Mahatma Gandhi".



Here is that wonderful poem "Aapni Yaadi" - written in his last year -  which describes beautifully that the beloved's memories are here,  there and everywhere, " wherever I set upon my eyes".  It has always been  and will be always regarded as a romantic poem. There will hardly be any one who has read it and can't recite its few lines and re-live  the romance .


But, just once, for a brief while, if the reader changes his point of view , he suddenly realizes that  the beloved here  is none other than the God Almighty ( as in Sufism) ,  dwelling in each of the five key elements of the universe, namely earth, water, light, air and sky and these insights into the poet's mind render the reading of this poem even a greater pleasure than ever before. 

Be it Kalapi or Keats: such is the power of youthful poetic genius. 

One gave up the throne and another his medical profession

- both to be and remain poets . 

It is no accident that people continue to shower their unfettered affection on them 

by daily reading or remembering what they wrote, making them immortal.

My old year resolution-cum- action plan " get a big dust bin - today !"

Before the new year forces me to commit to one more new resolution, I am determined to do something this year – place a big bucket near my desk at home and demand that each compartment of my material life dumps a few things in it – and ruthlessly.

Starting with the desk, there are pencil stubs, old pens, leaking ink pens long out of use, few springs without refills or pens, marker pens that do not mark, magnifying glass that has gone hazy, a dried, empty ink pot, rusted clips, stationery papers gone dirty, crumpled or torn, unwanted Xerox copies,  damaged cables and CDs and what not.

In the book shelf, there are old magazines , clippings, some one’s books yet to be returned ( reminding me of collecting books to be returned by friends), damaged books to be repaired and plastic covers to be replaced, etc.

In the wardrobes, there are over sized clothes of my pre-weight loss era, torn and stained clothes neatly ironed but never worn, belts which have lost shine or a damaged buckle, a sock waiting to be paired with its missing partner,  empty perfume bottles, etc.

In medicine chest, there are bottles with labels faded or peeled off, drugs still there after expiry dates, tablets - in tact – but with their use forgotten, rusted scissors, droppers, non-functional band-aids, lotions from gone by era and what not.

Shoe rack has sandals with buckle lost, few laces without shoes, empty shoe polish tins, solidified shoe wax bottles, etc.

In the kitchen, there are cups without a handle or saucers, utensils with screws and rivets that have long got tired, non-stick pans that now stick, pickles and sauces and pasta packs that we bought as an impulsive fad, flours which we  now fail to recognize, and so on.

There are dry-flowers with missing petals, flower vases that are incapable of standing upright, mementos that have lost shines and memories of places visited, dusty little things we do not remember why we brought them home, etc.

In the boot of the car there are cleaning mops and shines which were bought foolishly at gas station, old petrol bills and empty bottles, some plastics, a flashlight that does not flash, some piece of tube and cable which I do not where to fit or from where it came out, etc

In the garden there are leaking pieces of hose pipe, bent and damaged tools, a handle that came out of lawn mower, broken pots, empty cartons of pesticides and garden manure, brooms that can not sweep, etc

In the cell phone, there are stored numbers which have not been used for months, old messages that are not relevant, ring tones which have never been played, pictures that were taken to please someone but never looked at again, etc.

In the computer, all the drive, C, D, E, F, G and USB pen drive are bursting at seams with documents, spread sheets, html etc pages, PDF documents, songs that are no longer played or pics not viewed, draft letters never going to be finalized, programmes and applications and utilities thoughtlessly downloaded and most of them as a short-lived trial versions,etc.

In the Face book account and mail box, there are contacts with who a hello is not exchanged for a year (and equally unlikely for one more year), garbage like exchange of useless verbosity that one can now laugh at, and what not.

And mind you, this garbage is fresh, not more than a year old, lovingly piled up by my inaction, lethargy, faulty judgment of their future utility and inertia to clean the clutter.


Finally my shallow and narrow heart and dirty mind that have become landfills of bitter memories, hurts, insults, respect or recognition not received, harsh word and unwarranted treatment received, prejudices, unrealistic beliefs and expectations, judging people as soon as they or their thoughts appear in the mind,  strong opinions about people and places and incidents , 99% of which are for sure never ever going to recur , giving unwanted advice ( which is nothing but the reflection my own prejudices and  dogmas and unrealistic beliefs and one-off experiences) and what not.


How many people must have been hurt, distracted or distanced by this foul smelling litter spread in the vast land fill!


And mind you, unlike the other garbage that is fresh, this mental and emotion garbage is as old as my mind, body and soul.


I pray my Lord, recycle and destroy that first and help me do it as I embark upon that first, leaving the visible dust bin aside for a little while , if so needed.

Before I resolve for the New Year that is little away round the corner, the time is to bring a big bucket and a strong heart to cleanse, detoxify my home and my life.

Let me stop typing and start doing it today and now.

William Shakespeare's as I now him know...

Recently I was browsing through one old classic from my book shelf, printed in 1932 in London, by Strong & Redlich and a very interesting section on Shakespeare told me so much for the first time. 

Here it is :

“ …To be told that Shakespeare is the greatest writer who ever lived,and then to start upon a play which perhaps at first conveys nothing to us is a bewildering ( and quite unnecessary) experience. We have been led some how to expect that every sentence we read will be a sample of the best writing in the world - which is, of course, nonsense.  Shakespeare is the greatest writer in the virtue of whole of his work, the amazing sum total of it all, not because every line is perfect. Often he reaches heights which are beyond the reach of all others. Often and often he reaches heights which others could reach only now and then.

But when all is said and done, he is the king of writers, because no other has so wide a range, or understood so much: and because his work is not a haphazard total of all the things he ever wrote, but a complete thing in itself: a single huge poem, developed, natural and finished. Shakespeare ( did not go on writing till the day of his death, though he died in early middle age (52 years to be precise) . He had definitely retired ( at the age of 47) , and ceased to write, because he knew consciously or instinctively, that his work was finished...... 

By 1597 (when he was 33) he had made enough money to buy the biggest house in his town (Stratford)......

In those days, a play had a very short run, and there was a continual demand to keep the actors busy. Far more  of Shakespeare's work consisted of revising old plays than was at first realized: but the revision, from being at first the adding of a scene here and a few lines there, developed into a complete re-writing, and the transformation of an old plot into an original work of art. We know, for instance, that there was an earlier version of  Hamlet:  but that does not in any way detract from the greatness of Shakespeare's achievement. he did not care where he got his plot. A plot , for him, was the stimulus that set his mind working. He turned the plot over in his mind, altered it, re-considered it, joined it may be to another, and produced from the mixture something new and splendid. He took a historical subject from North's  translation of Plutarch or from Holinshead's chronicles, altering and condensing freely to bring out character, provide dramatic effect, and make a play.... 

Shakespeare is the universal writer. His friend Ben Jonson truly said of him that ' he writ not for an age but for all time'. For all time, for all nations: yet he was careless of his manuscripts, and the first collected edition of his plays was not published till seven years after his death.... Centuries hence, when all our story belongs to history, to have produced Shakespeare may well be judged the greatest achievement of the English race" 

Freedom to protest against the status quo....

Liberty has never come from the government.  Liberty has always come from the subjects of it.  The history of liberty is a history of resistance.  ~Woodrow Wilson

Men fight for liberty and win it with hard knocks.  Their children, brought up easy, let it slip away again, poor fools.  And their grandchildren are once more slaves.  ~D.H. Lawrence

Books won't stay banned -
Ideas won't go to jail.
~Alfred Whitney Griswold


You can cage the singer but not the song.  ~Harry Belafonte

If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.

George Washington (1732-1799) First President of the USA.

How absurd men are! They never use the liberties they have, they demand those they do not have. They have freedom of thought, they demand freedom of speech.

Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) Danish philosopher and writer.

Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties. John Milton (1608-1674) English poet.

Free speech is the whole thing, the whole ball game. Free speech is life itself. Salman Rushdie (1948-?) Anglo-Indian novelist.

A people which is able to say everything becomes able to do everything. Napoleon I (1769-1821) Napoleon Bonaparte. French general.

History does not teach fatalism.  There are moments when the will of a handful of free men breaks through determinism and opens up new roads.  ~Charles de Gaulle


Freedom has its life in the hearts, the actions, the spirit of men and so it must be daily earned and refreshed - else like a flower cut from its life-giving roots, it will wither and die.  ~Dwight D. Eisenhower


Liberty is the possibility of doubting, of making a mistake,... of searching and experimenting,... of saying No to any authority - literary, artistic, philosophical, religious, social, and even political.  ~Ignazio Silone,The God That Failed, 1950


Liberty: One of Imagination's most precious possessions.  ~Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary


The patriot's blood is the seed of Freedom's tree.  ~Thomas Campbell



Here is my advice as we begin the century that will lead to 2081.  First, guard the freedom of ideas at all costs.  Be alert that dictators have always played on the natural human tendency to blame others and to oversimplify.  And don't regard yourself as a guardian of freedom unless you respect and preserve the rights of people you disagree with to free, public, unhampered expression.  ~Gerard K. O'Neill, 2081

Liberty has never come from the government.  Liberty has always come from the subjects of it.  The history of liberty is a history of resistance.  ~Woodrow Wilson

Men fight for liberty and win it with hard knocks.  Their children, brought up easy, let it slip away again, poor fools.  And their grandchildren are once more slaves.  ~D.H. Lawrence

Books won't stay banned -
Ideas won't go to jail.
~Alfred Whitney Griswold


You can cage the singer but not the song.  ~Harry Belafonte

If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.

George Washington (1732-1799) First President of the USA.

How absurd men are! They never use the liberties they have, they demand those they do not have. They have freedom of thought, they demand freedom of speech.

Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) Danish philosopher and writer.

Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties. John Milton (1608-1674) English poet.

Free speech is the whole thing, the whole ball game. Free speech is life itself. Salman Rushdie (1948-?) Anglo-Indian novelist.

A people which is able to say everything becomes able to do everything. Napoleon I (1769-1821) Napoleon Bonaparte. French general.

History does not teach fatalism.  There are moments when the will of a handful of free men breaks through determinism and opens up new roads.  ~Charles de Gaulle


Freedom has its life in the hearts, the actions, the spirit of men and so it must be daily earned and refreshed - else like a flower cut from its life-giving roots, it will wither and die.  ~Dwight D. Eisenhower


Liberty is the possibility of doubting, of making a mistake,... of searching and experimenting,... of saying No to any authority - literary, artistic, philosophical, religious, social, and even political.  ~Ignazio Silone,The God That Failed, 1950


Liberty: One of Imagination's most precious possessions.  ~Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary


The patriot's blood is the seed of Freedom's tree.  ~Thomas Campbell



Here is my advice as we begin the century that will lead to 2081.  First, guard the freedom of ideas at all costs.  Be alert that dictators have always played on the natural human tendency to blame others and to oversimplify.  And don't regard yourself as a guardian of freedom unless you respect and preserve the rights of people you disagree with to free, public, unhampered expression.  ~Gerard K. O'Neill, 2081


Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves.  ~Abraham Lincoln


I wish that every human life might be pure transparent freedom.  ~Simone de Beauvoir


My definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular.  ~Adlai Stevenson, speech, Detroit, 1952


It is easy to take liberty for granted, when you have never had it taken from you.  ~Author unknown, sometimes attributed to M. Grundler


We on this continent should never forget that men first crossed the Atlantic not to find soil for their ploughs but to secure liberty for their souls.  ~Robert J. McCracken


You have freedom when you're easy in your harness.  ~Robert Frost


For what avail the plough or sail, or land or life, if freedom fail?  ~Ralph Waldo Emerson


Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it.  ~Thomas Paine


In the truest sense, freedom cannot be bestowed; it must be achieved.  ~Franklin D. Roosevelt


Freedom is the oxygen of the soul.  ~Moshe Dayan


There are two freedoms - the false, where a man is free to do what he likes; the true, where he is free to do what he ought.  ~Charles Kingsley


No one is free when others are oppressed.  ~Author Unknown


Freedom means choosing your burden.  ~Hephzibah Menuhin


Men fight for freedom, then they begin to accumulate laws to take it away from themselves.  ~Author Unknown


Freedom is that instant between when someone tells you to do something and when you decide how to respond.  ~Jeffrey Borenstein


Liberty is always dangerous, but it is the safest thing we have.  ~Harry Emerson Fosdick


The sound of tireless voices is the price we pay for the right to hear the music of our own opinions.  ~Adlai Stevenson, speech, New York City, 28 August 1952


They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.  ~Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759


Everywhere the human soul stands between a hemisphere of light and another of darkness on the confines of two everlasting hostile empires, - Necessity and Free Will.  ~Thomas Carlyle, Essays, "The Opera"

We have enjoyed so much freedom for so long that we are perhaps in danger of forgetting how much blood it cost to establish the Bill of Rights.  ~Felix Frankfurter


No man can put a chain about the ankle of his fellow man without at last finding the other end fastened about his own neck.  ~Frederick Douglass, speech, Civil Rights Mass Meeting, Washington, D.C., 1883


Liberty, when it begins to take root, is a plant of rapid growth.  ~George Washington


I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.  ~James Madison, speech, Virginia Convention, 1788


Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err.  ~Mahatma Gandhi


Freedom has a thousand charms to show,
That slaves, howe'er contented, never know.
~William Cowper


The contest for ages has been to rescue liberty from the grasp of executive power.  ~Daniel Webster


Freedom is nothing else but a chance to be better.  ~Albert Camus


I prefer liberty with danger to peace with slavery.  ~Author Unknown


Freedom is the will to be responsible to ourselves.  ~Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols, 1888


Without freedom, no one really has a name.  ~Milton Acorda


A nation may lose its liberties in a day and not miss them in a century.  ~Baron de Montesquieu


Liberty means responsibility.  That is why most men dread it.  ~George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman, "Maxims: Liberty and Equality," 1905


Freedom is never free.  ~Author Unknown


We are free, truly free, when we don't need to rent our arms to anybody in order to be able to lift a piece of bread to our mouths.  ~Ricardo Flores Magon, speech, 31 May 1914

We can never be sure that the opinion we are endeavoring to stifle is a false opinion; and if we were sure, stifling it would be an evil still.  ~John Stuart Mill,On Liberty, 1859


The only valid censorship of ideas is the right of people not to listen.  ~Tommy Smothers

We have a natural right to make use of our pens as of our tongue, at our peril, risk and hazard.  ~Voltaire,Dictionnaire Philosophique, 1764


Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so, too.  ~Voltaire

The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it.  If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth:  if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.  ~John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, 1859


Books won't stay banned.  They won't burn.  Ideas won't go to jail.  In the long run of history, the censor and the inquisitor have always lost.  The only weapon against bad ideas is better ideas.  ~Alfred Whitney Griswold, New York Times, 24 February 1959


A free press can be good or bad, but, most certainly, without freedom a press will never be anything but bad.  ~Albert Camus


To reject the word is to reject the human search.  ~Max Lerner, 1953, on book purging


What progress we are making.  In the Middle Ages they would have burned me.  Now they are content with burning my books.  ~Sigmund Freud, 1933


Every burned book enlightens the world.  ~Ralph Waldo Emerson


The paper burns, but the words fly away.  ~Akiba ben Joseph


Did you ever hear anyone say, "That work had better be banned because I might read it and it might be very damaging to me?" ~Joseph Henry Jackson


If you don't have this freedom of the press, then all these little fellows are weaseling around and doing their monkey business and they never get caught.  ~Harold R. Medina


The test of democracy is freedom of criticism.  ~David Ben-Gurion


If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.  ~John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, 1859


To limit the press is to insult a nation; to prohibit reading of certain books is to declare the inhabitants to be either fools or slaves.  ~Claude-Adrien Helvétius

We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values.  For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.  ~John F. Kennedy

God forbid that any book should be banned.  The practice is as indefensible as infanticide.  ~Rebecca West

If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all.  ~Noam Chomsky


Every human being has a right to hear what other wise human beings have spoken to him.  It is one of the Rights of Men; a very cruel injustice if you deny it to a man!  ~Thomas Carlyle



I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.  ~Evelyn Beatrice Hall, The Friends of Voltaire, 1906, a description of Voltaire's attitude, commonly misattributed to Voltaire, the closest of his documented sentiments being "I detest what you write, but I would give my life to make it possible for you to continue to write." in a 1770 letter 

The very aim and end of our institutions is just this: that we may thing what we like and say what we think.

Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894) American author and poet.

Every man has a right to utter what he thinks truth, and every other man has a right to knock him down for it. Martyrdom is the test.

Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) British author.

Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves.  ~Abraham Lincoln


I wish that every human life might be pure transparent freedom.  ~Simone de Beauvoir


My definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular.  ~Adlai Stevenson, speech, Detroit, 1952


It is easy to take liberty for granted, when you have never had it taken from you.  ~Author unknown, sometimes attributed to M. Grundler


We on this continent should never forget that men first crossed the Atlantic not to find soil for their ploughs but to secure liberty for their souls.  ~Robert J. McCracken


You have freedom when you're easy in your harness.  ~Robert Frost


For what avail the plough or sail, or land or life, if freedom fail?  ~Ralph Waldo Emerson


Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it.  ~Thomas Paine


In the truest sense, freedom cannot be bestowed; it must be achieved.  ~Franklin D. Roosevelt


Freedom is the oxygen of the soul.  ~Moshe Dayan


There are two freedoms - the false, where a man is free to do what he likes; the true, where he is free to do what he ought.  ~Charles Kingsley


No one is free when others are oppressed.  ~Author Unknown


Freedom means choosing your burden.  ~Hephzibah Menuhin


Men fight for freedom, then they begin to accumulate laws to take it away from themselves.  ~Author Unknown


Freedom is that instant between when someone tells you to do something and when you decide how to respond.  ~Jeffrey Borenstein


Liberty is always dangerous, but it is the safest thing we have.  ~Harry Emerson Fosdick


The sound of tireless voices is the price we pay for the right to hear the music of our own opinions.  ~Adlai Stevenson, speech, New York City, 28 August 1952


They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.  ~Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759


Everywhere the human soul stands between a hemisphere of light and another of darkness on the confines of two everlasting hostile empires, - Necessity and Free Will.  ~Thomas Carlyle, Essays, "The Opera"


We have enjoyed so much freedom for so long that we are perhaps in danger of forgetting how much blood it cost to establish the Bill of Rights.  ~Felix Frankfurter


No man can put a chain about the ankle of his fellow man without at last finding the other end fastened about his own neck.  ~Frederick Douglass, speech, Civil Rights Mass Meeting, Washington, D.C., 1883


Liberty, when it begins to take root, is a plant of rapid growth.  ~George Washington


I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.  ~James Madison, speech, Virginia Convention, 1788


Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err.  ~Mahatma Gandhi


Freedom has a thousand charms to show,
That slaves, howe'er contented, never know.
~William Cowper


The contest for ages has been to rescue liberty from the grasp of executive power.  ~Daniel Webster


Freedom is nothing else but a chance to be better.  ~Albert Camus


I prefer liberty with danger to peace with slavery.  ~Author Unknown


Freedom is the will to be responsible to ourselves.  ~Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols, 1888


Without freedom, no one really has a name.  ~Milton Acorda


A nation may lose its liberties in a day and not miss them in a century.  ~Baron de Montesquieu


Liberty means responsibility.  That is why most men dread it.  ~George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman, "Maxims: Liberty and Equality," 1905


Freedom is never free.  ~Author Unknown


We are free, truly free, when we don't need to rent our arms to anybody in order to be able to lift a piece of bread to our mouths.  ~Ricardo Flores Magon, speech, 31 May 1914

We can never be sure that the opinion we are endeavoring to stifle is a false opinion; and if we were sure, stifling it would be an evil still.  ~John Stuart Mill,On Liberty, 1859


The only valid censorship of ideas is the right of people not to listen.  ~Tommy Smothers

We have a natural right to make use of our pens as of our tongue, at our peril, risk and hazard.  ~Voltaire,Dictionnaire Philosophique, 1764


Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so, too.  ~Voltaire

The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it.  If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth:  if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.  ~John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, 1859


Books won't stay banned.  They won't burn.  Ideas won't go to jail.  In the long run of history, the censor and the inquisitor have always lost.  The only weapon against bad ideas is better ideas.  ~Alfred Whitney Griswold, New York Times, 24 February 1959


A free press can be good or bad, but, most certainly, without freedom a press will never be anything but bad.  ~Albert Camus


To reject the word is to reject the human search.  ~Max Lerner, 1953, on book purging


What progress we are making.  In the Middle Ages they would have burned me.  Now they are content with burning my books.  ~Sigmund Freud, 1933


Every burned book enlightens the world.  ~Ralph Waldo Emerson


The paper burns, but the words fly away.  ~Akiba ben Joseph


Did you ever hear anyone say, "That work had better be banned because I might read it and it might be very damaging to me?" ~Joseph Henry Jackson


If you don't have this freedom of the press, then all these little fellows are weaseling around and doing their monkey business and they never get caught.  ~Harold R. Medina


The test of democracy is freedom of criticism.  ~David Ben-Gurion


If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.  ~John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, 1859


To limit the press is to insult a nation; to prohibit reading of certain books is to declare the inhabitants to be either fools or slaves.  ~Claude-Adrien Helvétius

We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values.  For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.  ~John F. Kennedy

God forbid that any book should be banned.  The practice is as indefensible as infanticide.  ~Rebecca West

If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all.  ~Noam Chomsky


Every human being has a right to hear what other wise human beings have spoken to him.  It is one of the Rights of Men; a very cruel injustice if you deny it to a man!  ~Thomas Carlyle



I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.  ~Evelyn Beatrice Hall, The Friends of Voltaire, 1906, a description of Voltaire's attitude, commonly misattributed to Voltaire, the closest of his documented sentiments being "I detest what you write, but I would give my life to make it possible for you to continue to write." in a 1770 letter 

The very aim and end of our institutions is just this: that we may thing what we like and say what we think.

Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894) American author and poet.

Every man has a right to utter what he thinks truth, and every other man has a right to knock him down for it. Martyrdom is the test.

Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) British author.

"I want to suggest to you that citizens of free societies, democracies, do not preserve their freedom by pussyfooting around their fellow-citizen's opinions, even their most cherished beliefs.

In free societies, you must have the free play of ideas. There must be argument, and it must be impassioned and untrammeled.

A free society is not calm and eventless place - that is the kind of static, dead society dictators try to create.

Free societies are dynamic, noisy, turbulent, and full of radical disagreements.

Skepticism and freedom are indissolubly linked; and it is the skepticism of journalists, their show-me, prove-it unwillingness to be impressed, that is perhaps their most important contribution to the freedom of the free world.

It is the disrespect of journalists-for power, for orthodoxies, for party lines, for ideologies, for vanity, for arrogance, for folly, for pretension, for corruption, for stupidity, maybe even for editors-that I would like to celebrate...and that I urge you all, in freedom's name, to preserve." 

Salman Rushdie