Censoring Books Quotes:

There's more than one way to be a girl

- Lauren Faust

topic: Girl, Censorship In Books, Censoring Books, Burglars, Banned Books

Art made tongue-tied by authority.

- William Shakespeare

source: Sonnet 66

topic: Art, Censorship In Books, Censoring Books, Tongue Tied

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

topic: Criticism, Would Be, Littles, Printing Press, Banned Books

What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist.

- Salman Rushdie

source: Salman Rushdie (1990). “In good faith”, Penguin (Non-Classics)

topic: Honesty, Integrity, Expression, Freedom Of Expression, Banned

One cannot and must not try to erase the past merely because it does not fit the present.

- Golda Meir

source: "My Life". Book by Golda Meir, 1975.

topic: Inspiration, Past, Trying, You Can't Change The Past, Censorship In Books

The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.

- Oscar Wilde

topic: Inspirational, Book, Reading, Inspirational Reading, Inspiring Book

There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them.

- Joseph Brodsky

source: "The Balancing Act: Mastering the Competing Demands of Leadership". Book by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Al Switzler and Ron McMillan, 1996.

topic: Book, Reading, Burning, Martian Chronicles, Learning To Read

Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so, too.

- Voltaire

topic: Inspirational, Thinking, Privilege, Banned, Banned Books

He who destroys a good book kills reason itself.

- John Milton

source: Areopagitica (1644)

topic: Book, Reading, Reason, Censored, Reading Good Books

They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

- Benjamin Franklin

topic: Inspirational, Happiness, Peace, Social Democracy, Power Corruption

[I]t'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. As always, young readers will be the real losers.

- Judy Blume

topic: Real, Book, Fire, Banned Books, Censored

There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running about with lit matches.

- Ray Bradbury

topic: Running, Book, People, Burglars, One Way

The dirtiest book of all is the expurgated book.

- Walt Whitman

topic: Book, Library, Censorship, Banned, Banned Books

Censorship reflects a society's lack of confidence in itself.

- Potter Stewart

source: "United States v. Ginzburg, 383 U.S. 463". Dissenting opinion, 1965.

topic: Censorship, Lack Of Confidence, Banned, Liberty Of Speech, Banned Books

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.

- Noam Chomsky

topic: Hero, Imagination, Forever, Censored, Censoring

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 sure weapon against bad ideas is better ideas. The source of better ideas is wisdom. The surest path to wisdom is a liberal education.

- Alfred Whitney Griswold

source: "Quora: What Does Freedom of Speech Mean?". www.yahoo.com. May 13, 2017.

topic: Running, Book, Ideas, Freedom Of Expression, Liberal Education

Every burned book or house enlightens the world; every suppressed or expunged word reverberates through the earth from side to side.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

source: Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.299, Library of America

topic: Book, House, Atheism, Suppressing, Censoring

Don't join the book burners!

- Dwight D. Eisenhower

source: Remarks at Dartmouth College Commencement, Hanover, N.H., 14 June 1953

topic: Book, Library, Censorship, Intellectual Freedom, Libraries And Librarians

Books and ideas are the most effective weapons against intolerance and ignorance.

- Lyndon B. Johnson

source: Johnson, Lyndon B. (1965). “Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Lyndon B. Johnson, 1963-1964”, p.285, Best Books on

topic: Book, Ignorance, Ideas, Banned Books, Censoring

I am mortified to be told that, in the United States of America, the sale of a book can become a subject of inquiry, and of criminal inquiry too.

- Thomas Jefferson

topic: Book, Thinking, America, Censored, Censoring

Censorship is the child of fear and the father of ignorance.

- Laurie Halse Anderson

topic: Children, Father, Ignorance, Banned Books, Censored

The crime of book purging is that it involves a rejection of the word. For the word is never absolute truth, but only man's frail and human effort to approach the truth. To reject the word is to reject the human search.

- Max Lerner

source: Max Lerner (1959). “The Unfinished Country”

topic: Book, Men, Effort, Banned Books, Purging

Don't join the book burners. Do not think you are going to conceal thoughts by concealing evidence that they ever existed.

- Dwight D. Eisenhower

topic: Lying, Book, Thinking, Libraries And Librarians, Banned Books

Censorship, like charity, should begin at home, but, unlike charity, it should end there.

- Clare Boothe Luce

topic: Home, Government, Library, Banned Books, Censored

Every burned book enlightens the world.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

topic: Book, World, Censorship, Banned Books, Censored

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.

- James Madison

source: Virginia. General Assembly. House of Delegates, J. W. Randolph, James Madison (1850). “The Virginia Report of 1799-1800: Touching the Alien and Sedition Laws; Together with the Virginia Resolutions of December 21, 1798, Including the Debate and Proceedings Thereon in the House of Delegates of Virginia and Other Documents Illustrative of the Report and Resolutions”, p.136

topic: Exercise, Secular Society, Law, Redress, Founding

Censorship always defeats it own purpose, for it creates in the end the kind of society that is incapable of exercising real discretion.

- Henry Steele Commager

topic: Real, Exercise, Purpose, Liberty Of Speech, Book Banning

Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it.

- Mark Twain

topic: Baby, Men, Censorship, Banned, Chewing

Censorship ends in logical completeness when nobody is allowed to read any books except the books that nobody reads.

- George Bernard Shaw

topic: Book, Censorship, Logical, Banned, Banned Books

Banning books gives us silence when we need speech. It closes our ears when we need to listen. It makes us blind when we need sight.

- Stephen Chbosky

topic: Book, Sight, Giving, Banned Books, Censoring

When a library expels a book of mine and leaves an unexpurgated Bible lying around where unprotected youth and age can get hold of it, the deep unconscious irony of it delights me and doesn't anger me.

- Mark Twain

topic: Lying, Book, Age, Censored, Censoring

If some books are deemed most baneful and their sale forbid, how then with deadlier facts, not dreams of doting men? Those whom books will hurt will not be proof against events. Events, not books should be forbid.

- Herman Melville

topic: Dream, Hurt, Book, Censorship In Books, Censoring Books

It didn't come from the Government down. There was no dictum, no declaration, no censorship, to start with, no! Technology, mass exploitation, and minority pressure carried the trick, thank God.

- Ray Bradbury

source: Ray Bradbury (2016). “Fahrenheit 451”, p.28, Hamilton Books

topic: Technology, Government, Thank God, Fahrenheit 451 Book, Censorship In Books

Yes, books are dangerous. They should be dangerous - they contain ideas.

- Pete Hautman

topic: Book, Ideas, Censorship, Banned Books, Freedom To Read

We live in oppressive times. We have, as a nation, become our own thought police; but instead of calling the process by which we limit our expression of dissent and wonder ‘censorship,’ we call it ‘concern for commercial viability.

- David Mamet

source: David Mamet (1986). “Writing in restaurants”, Viking Adult

topic: Freedom, Media, Expression, Thought Police, Censoring

Don't join the book burners... Don't be afraid to go in your library and read every book.

- Dwight D. Eisenhower

topic: Book, Reading, Library, Libraries Books And Reading, Censoring

Restriction of free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us.

- William O. Douglas

source: "The One Un-American Act". William O. Douglas' speech to the Author's Guild Council in New York on receiving the 1951 Lauterbach Award, December 3, 1952.

topic: Speech, Civil Rights, Defeat, American Revolution, Intellectual Freedom

Censoring books that deal with difficult, adolescent issues does not protect anybody. Quite the opposite. It leaves kids in the darkness and makes them vulnerable. Censorship is the child of fear and the father of ignorance. Our children cannot afford to have the truth of the world withheld from them

- Laurie Halse Anderson

topic: Children, Father, Book, Censoring Books