People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.

It is easier to defend a right than to use it. Speaking freely costs nothing but nerve; thinking freely costs you the comfort of opinions you inherited and never examined. Plenty of what any of us says out loud arrived secondhand, absorbed rather than chosen. The loudest defence of speech can sit on top of very little original thought.

Take one opinion you hold firmly and trace it back to where you first got it. Ask whether you have ever tested it against the strongest version of the other side. Saying less and thinking more is not silence; it is having something of your own to say.