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That is why even the most ferocious dictator would rather be treated by a doctor who was free to think and speak the truth than by his own Minister of Propaganda. For there is a point, the point at which things really matter, where the freedom of others is no longer a question of their right but of our own need.
正因为这个道理，即使最凶残的暴君也宁愿接受一位独立思考、直言不讳的医生的治疗，而不会求助于手下的宣传部长。因为存在着程度问题，到了那个程度情况确实严重了，于是他人的自由便不再是他们的权利问题，而是我们自身需要的问题。
The point at which we recognize this need is much higher in some men than in others. The totalitarian rulers think they do not need the freedom of an opposition: They exile, imprison, or shoot their opponents. We have concluded on the basis of practical experience, which goes back to Magna Carta and beyond, that we need the opposition. We pay the opposition salaries out of the public treasury.
对某些人来说，认识这种需要的程度要高于别人。极权统治者认为，他们无须保护反对派的自由，于是便对反对者处以流放、监禁或枪决。根据可以追溯到《大宪章》或更早的实际经验，我们已经得出结论：我们需要反对派。我们的财政部向反对派支付薪金。
In so far as the usual apology for freedom of speech ignores this experience, it becomes abstract and eccentric rather than concrete and human. The emphasis is generally put on the right to speak, as if all that mattered were that the doctor should be free to go out into the park and explain to the empty air why I have a stomachache. Surely that is a miserable caricature of the great civic right which men have bled and died for. What really matters is that the doctor should tell me what ails me, that I should listen to him; that if I do not like what he says I should be free to call in another doctor; and that then the first doctor should have to listen to the second doctor; and that out of all the speaking and listening, the give-and-take of opinions, the truth should be arrived at.
如果为言论自由而做的通常辩护忽视了这种经验，辩护就变得抽象怪异，而不再是具体的合乎人性的。一般偏重的是说话权利，似乎至关重要的是医生应该自由走进公园，对着空空如也的空气说明我胃痛的原因。无疑这是对多少人为之流血牺牲的伟大民权的一种可悲嘲讽。问题真正的关键在于：医生应该把折磨我的病情告诉我本人，我也应该听从医嘱；如果觉得他的话不顺耳，我应该可以另请高明；那时第一位医生应该听听第二位医生的意见；大家边说边听，交换意见，应该求得真理。
This is the creative principle of freedom of speech, not that it is a system for the tolerating of error, but that it is a system for finding the truth. It may not produce the truth, or the whole truth all the time, or often, or in some cases ever.
这是言论自由的创造性原则，并非说它是一种容忍错误的体制，而是说它是一种发现真理的体制。它可能产生不了真理，永远、经常或总是在某些情形中产生不了全部真理。
