Without free speech no search for truth is possible... no discovery of truth is useful.
Interpretation
Free speech is essential for discovering and understanding truth.
This quote highlights the fundamental role that free speech plays in the pursuit of truth. Charles Bradlaugh emphasizes that without the ability to express ideas freely, society cannot adequately search for or discern what is true, rendering any discoveries meaningless.
In practice
In a debate about censorship, one might quote this to emphasize the importance of free discourse.
The atheist does not say 'there is no God,' but he says 'I know not what you mean by God; I am without idea of God'; the word 'God' is to me a sound conveying no clear or distinct affirmation. ... The Bible God I deny; the Christian God I disbelieve in; but I am not rash enough to say there is no God as long as you tell me you are unprepared to define God to me.
He who gives away shall have real gain. He who subdues himself shall be free; he shall cease to be a slave of passions. The righteous man casts off evil, and by rooting out lust, bitterness, and illusion do we reach Nirvana.
Equity feminism is a moral doctrine about equal treatment that makes no commitments regarding open empirical issues in psychology or biology.
Like all young men I set out to be a genius, but mercifully laughter intervened.
In a world of democracies, in a world where the great projects that have set humanity on fire are the projects of the emancipation of individuals from entrenched social division and hierarchy; in such a world individuals must never be puppets or prisoners of the societies or cultures into which they have been born.
When we are returned to power we want to put in the statute book an act which will make our people citizens of the world before they are citizens of this country.
When I was very young and the urge to be someplace else was on me, I was assured by mature people that maturity would cure this itch. When years described me as mature, the remedy prescribed was middle age. In middle age I was assured that greater age would calm my fever and now that I am fifty-eight perhaps senility will do the job. Nothing has worked. I fear the disease is incurable.
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