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About this quote

What does it mean?
Only the dead can speak without fear of consequences.
In plain terms
The dead have free speech.
What can you take from it?
Living people risk repercussions when they speak.

Where it applies

  • authoritarian regimes
  • controversial topics

Putting it to work

  • choose words carefully
  • protect whistleblowers

Questions to consider

  • What protects free speech today?
  • When does speech become dangerous?

Another view

Free speech can exist for the living under certain protections.

More from Samuel Langhorne Clemens

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  3. Death, the only immortal who treats us all alike, whose pity and whose peace and whose refuge are for all - the soiled and the pure, the rich and the poor, the…

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