More from Mill on Free Speech
October 23 2009, 7:58 AM
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
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