When you tear out a man's tongue, you are not proving him a liar, you're only telling the world that you fear what he might say.

The line is spoken in George R. R. Martin’s fantasy series *A Song of Ice and Fire*, in a political culture where rulers commonly use mutilation, torture, and public punishment to silence dissent. The remark is typically associated with Tyrion Lannister, a character who survives by wit and rhetoric amid court intrigue. In that setting, the quote functions as a rebuke to authoritarian “proof” obtained by force: removing someone’s ability to speak does not establish truth, it merely demonstrates the silencer’s anxiety about uncontrolled testimony and persuasion. The sentiment reflects the series’ recurring concern with power, propaganda, and the fragility of justice under coercive rule.

The quote argues that censorship and violent suppression do not establish truth; they merely reveal the suppressor’s anxiety. “Tearing out a man’s tongue” is an extreme image for silencing—whether literal mutilation or metaphorical repression. Martin’s formulation distinguishes evidence from coercion: truth is not proven by preventing someone from speaking, and the attempt to do so undermines the silencer’s credibility. The line also implies a political lesson: regimes that fear speech concede that words can threaten power, and that public perception will interpret silencing as weakness. It is, in effect, a defense of open discourse as the proper arena for testing claims.