The prime goal of censorship is to promote ignorance, whether it is done via lying and bowdlerized school texts or by attacking individual books. ~Felice Picano
There is a fine line between censorship and good taste and moral responsibility. ~Steven Spielberg
Censorship reflects a society's lack of confidence in itself. ~Potter Stewart
Without censorship, things can get terribly confused in the public mind. ~William Westmoreland
Censorship, like charity, should begin at home, but, unlike charity, it should end there. ~Clare Boothe Luce
The fact is that censorship always defeats its own purpose, for it creates, in the end, the kind of society that is incapable of exercising real discretion. ~Henry Steele Commager
The only valid censorship of ideas is the right of people not to listen. ~Tommy Smothers
We have a natural right to make use of our pens as of our tongue, at our peril, risk and hazard. ~Voltaire
I am thankful for all the complaining I hear about our government because it means we have freedom of speech. ~Nancie J. Carmody
Books won't stay banned. They won't burn. Ideas won't go to jail. In the long run of history, the censor and the inquisitor have always lost. The only weapon against bad ideas is better ideas. ~Alfred Whitney Griswold
Let children read whatever they want and then talk about it with them. If parents and kids can talk together, we won't have as much censorship because we won't have as much fear. ~Judy Blume
It's not just the books under fire now that worry me. It is the books that will never be written. The books that will never be read. And all due to the fear of censorship. ~Judy Blume
Censorship laws are blunt instruments, not sharp scalpels. Once enacted, they are easily misapplied to merely unpopular or only marginally dangerous speech. ~Alan Dershowitz
Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost. ~Thomas Jefferson
All censorships exist to prevent anyone from challenging current conceptions and existing institutions. All progress is initiated by challenging current conceptions, and executed by supplanting existing institutions. Consequentlythe first condition of progress is the removal of censorship. ~George Bernard Shaw
If all printers were determined not to print anything till they were sure it would offend nobody, there would be very little printed. ~Benjamin Franklin
Where they have burned books, they will end in burning human beings. ~Heinrich Heine
Information is the currency of democracy. ~Thomas Jefferson
If large numbers of people believe in freedom of speech, there will be freedom of speech, even if the law forbids it. But if public opinion is sluggish, inconvenient minorities will be persecuted, even if laws exist to protect them. ~George Orwell
The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame. ~Oscar Wilde
We all know that books burn, yet we have the greater knowledge that books cannot be killed by fire. People die, but books never die. No man and no force can put thought in a concentration camp forever. No man and no force can take from the world the books that embody man's eternal fight against tyranny of every kind. ~Franklin D. Roosevelt
What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist. ~Salman Rushdie
Imagine books and music and movies being filtered and homogenized. Certified. Approved for consumption. People will be happy to give up most of their culture for the assurance that the tiny bit that comes through is safe and clean. White noise. ~Chuck Palahniuk
Every burned book or house enlightens the world; every suppressed or expunged word reverberates through the earth from side to side. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson
An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all. ~Oscar Wilde
There is nothing more frightening than active ignorance. ~Goethe
I hope people realize that banning the truth, as well as fiction, is proof that ignorance is dangerous to freedom. ~Jen
You have not converted a man because you have silenced him. ~John Morley
One cannot and must not try to erase the past merely because it does not fit the present. ~Golda Meir
Did you ever hear anyone say, 'That work had better be banned because I might read it and it might be very damaging to me'? ~Joseph Henry Jackson
There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running about with lit matches. ~Ray Bradbury
A word to the unwise. Torch every book. Char every page. Burn every word to ash. Ideas are incombustible. And therein lies your real fear. ~Ellen Hopkins
Censorship is the child of fear and the father of ignorance. ~Laurie Halse Anderson
Banning books is just another form of bullying. It's all about fear and an assumption of power. The key is to address the fear and deny the power. ~James Howe
Yes, books are dangerous. They should be dangerous--they contain ideas. ~Pete Hautman
Censors tend to do what only psychotics do: they confuse reality with illusion. ~David Cronenberg
Censorship ends in logical completeness when nobody is allowed to read any books except the books nobody reads. ~George Bernard Shaw
Censorship is never over for those who have experienced it. It is a brand on the imagination that affects the individual who has suffered it, forever. ~Nadine Gordimer
Right now I think censorship is necessary; the things they're doing and saying in films right now just shouldn't be allowed. There's no dignity anymore and I think that's very important. ~Mae West
One of the curious things about censorship is that no one seems to want it for himself. We want censorship to protect someone else; the young, the unstable, the suggestible, the stupid. I have never heard of anyone who wanted a film banned because otherwise he might see it and be harmed. ~Edgar Dale
Obviously, the danger is not in the actual act of reading itself, but rather, the possibility that the texts children read will incite questions, introduce novel ideas, and provoke critical inquiry. ~Persis M. Karim
Without free speech no search for truth is possible... no discovery of truth is useful... Better a thousandfold abuse of free speech than denial of free speech. The abuse dies in a day, but the denial slays the life of the people, and entombs the hope of the race. ~Charles Bradlaugh
Freedom of speech means that you shall not do something to people either for the views they have, or the views they express, or the words they speak or write.~Hugo L. Black
The ultimate form of censorship is assassination. ~George Bernard Shaw
When the conspiracy of lies surrounding me demands of me to silence the one word of truth given to me, that word becomes the one word I wish to utter above all others. ~Andre P. Brink
The burning of an author's books, imprisonment for opinion's sake, has always been the tribute that an ignorant age pays to the genius of its time. ~Joseph Allen
The intellectually stifling results of censorship -- while deplorable in any setting -- would be all the more abominable if allowed to exist within the college environment. ~William M. Anderson
The spectacle of a judge pouring over the picture of some nude, trying to ascertain the extent to which she arouses prurient interests, and then attempting to write an opinion which explains the difference between that nude and some other nude has elements of low comedy. ~Thurman Arnold
Thought that is silenced is always rebellious. Majorities, of course, are often mistaken. This is why the silencing of minorities is necessarily dangerous. Criticism and dissent are the indispensable antidote to major delusions. ~Alan Barth
As to the evil which results from censorship, it is impossible to measure it, because it is impossible to tell where it ends. ~Alan Barth
