World Press Freedom Day quotes to share with your loved ones

'World Press Freedom Day' is celebrated every year on May 3. It is one of the calendar events outlined, organised and promoted by the United Nations. The theme of World Press Freedom Day 2020 is "Safety of Journalists - Press Freedom and media capture".  The significance of the day is to raise awareness of the importance of freedom of the press and remind governments of their duty to respect and uphold the right to freedom of expression enshrined under Article 19 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Check out some heartwarming World Press Freedom Day quotes to send your near and dear ones to celebrate this day. 

Quotes for World Press Freedom Day

• "The freedom of the human mind is recognized in the right to free speech and free press." - Calvin Coolidge
• "Freedom of the Press, if it means anything at all, means the freedom to criticize and oppose." - George Orwell
• "No prison is big enough to contain free speech." - Mazen Darwish 
• "History has given me the choice of a pen". -  Gao Yu. Wish you a Happy World Press Freedom Day 2020
• "Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter." - Thomas Jefferson.
• "We have to uphold a free press and freedom of speech- because, in the end, lies and misinformation are no match for the truth." - Barack Obama
• "Freedom of the press is the mortar that binds together the bricks of democracy- and it is also the open window embedded in those bricks." - Shashi Tharoor
• "What matters is the information, not what you think about it." - Anna Politkovskaya 

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• "Freedom of the press is a precious privilege that no country can forego." - M.K. Gandhi 
• "As journalists, we are sometimes guilty of not taking cognizance of the enormity of the challenges and the responsibilities that we carry on our shoulders." - Geofrey Nyarota  
• "A free press can, of course, be good or bad, but, most certainly without freedom, the press will never be anything but bad." - Albert Camus
• We live to think annd express our thoughts in writing. If an individual or government prevents someone from writing, from being published...it is as if they were taking their life." - Ahmad Zeidabadi
• "The press should do what it can to minimise the abuse of power (self-scrutiny can help and so can competition), but we should also try to understand with clarity why and how press freedom can enrich human lives, enhance public justice, and even help to promote economic and social development." -  Amartya Sen
• "Freedom of the press belongs to the people of a nation, not to the owners of publications." - A. J. Liebling
• "Black press which up to now has been largely controlled and some of it financed by government institutions…Most of the Black press is being used as instruments of propaganda to get people to swallow most of the unbalanced and inflated stories." - Steve Biko.
• "We must also pause to question what press freedom must not do: It cannot be used to promote gender violence, to extol terrorism, to deny human rights, to encourage religious or racial bigotry and above all to be a tool for genocide…” - E. John Dramani Mahama, Former President of the Republic of Ghana

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• "Where a free press is imperilled, muzzled, or banned altogether, every other freedom is limited too, and democracy itself is threatened…While we must recognise the danger of the mass media spreading false and ugly stereotypes, the solution lies in an ever-livelier debate in which racist ideas can be defeated." - Thabo Mbeki
• Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. " - Martin Luther King Jr
• “…It is important to appreciate the role that a free and vibrant press can play in bringing the horror of racism to light, and inspiring people the world over to act on behalf of victims of racism, discrimination and bigotry of every kind." -Kofi Annan 
• "The greatest challenge to media freedom is self-induced: Putting out content that has little regard for what audiences and readers want; disregarding the ethics of the profession; not maintaining high professional standards; and not paying adequate attention to the business dimension of the news business." -  Eric Chinje
• "Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech." -  Benjamin Franklin

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• "As people get their opinions so largely from the newspapers they read, the corruption of the schools would not matter so much if the Press were free. But the Press is not free. As it costs at least a quarter of a million of money to establish a daily newspaper in London, the newspapers are owned by rich men. And they depend on the advertisements of other rich men. Editors and journalists who express opinions in print that are opposed to the interests of the rich are dismissed and replaced by subservient ones." -  George Bernard Shaw
• "Town after town has but one newspaper or one radio station. It is often owned by Murdoch. Yes, we don’t have as much freedom of the press as we think we have – although the traditional freedom of speech is strongly rooted in American culture." - Pete Seeger
• "If the deaf are to hear, the sound has to be very loud" - Bhagat Singh
• "Neither the chains of dictatorship nor the fetters of oppression can keep down the forces of freedom for long" - Angela Merkel
• "The Constitution of most of our states (and of the United States) assert that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by themselves; that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed and that they are entitled to freedom of person, freedom of religion, freedom of property, and freedom of press." - Thomas Jefferson
• "As unbalanced parties of every description can never tolerate a free inquiry of any kind, when employed against themselves, the license, and even the most temperate freedom of the press, soon excite resentment and revenge." - John Adams
• "The freedom of the press should be inviolate." -  John Quincy Adams
• "The people must know before they can act, and there is no educator to compare with the press." -  Ida B. Wells
• "Freedom of the press is the staff of life, for any vital democracy." -  Wendell Willkie

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