Censorship In 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

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 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

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

topic: Might, Censorship, Banned, Book Banning, Censorship In Books

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

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

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

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

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

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

Every burned book enlightens the world.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

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

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

[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

Wherever they burn books they will also, in the end, burn human beings.

- Heinrich Heine

source: Almansor: A Tragedy l. 245 (1823)

topic: Reading, Book, Evil, Libraries And Reading, Censoring

If this nation is to be wise as well as strong, if we are to achieve our destiny, then we need more new ideas for more wise men reading more good books in more public libraries.

- John F. Kennedy

topic: Wise, Strong, Book, Libraries And Librarians, Library Books

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

Without free speech no search for truth is possible; without free speech progress is checked and the nations no longer march forward toward the nobler life which the future holds for man. Better a thousandfold abuse of free speech than denial of free speech. The abuse dies in a day, but the denial stays the life of the people, and entombs the hope of the race.

- Charles Bradlaugh

source: Charles Bradlaugh's speech at Hall of Science (circa 1880), as quoted in Annie Besant "Annie Besant: An Autobiography", 1893.

topic: Freedom, Men, Race, Limiting Freedom Of Expression, 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

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

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

- Voltaire

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

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

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

If this nation is to be wise as well as strong, if we are to achieve our destiny, then we need more new ideas for more wise men reading more good books in more public libraries. These libraries should be open to all—except the censor. We must know all the facts and hear all the alternatives and listen to all the criticisms. Let us welcome controversial books and controversial authors. For the Bill of Rights is the guardian of our security as well as our liberty.

- John F. Kennedy

topic: Wise, Strong, Book, Libraries And Librarians, Questionnaires

For books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a potency of life in them to be as active as that soul was whose progeny they are; nay, they do preserve as in a vial the purest efficacy and extraction of that living intellect that bred them.

- John Milton

topic: Life, Book, Soul, Potency, Efficacy

Books can not be killed by fire. People die, but books never die. No man and no force can abolish memory... In this war, we know, books are weapons. And it is a part of your dedication always to make them weapons for man's freedom.

- Franklin D. Roosevelt

topic: Memories, Freedom, War, Book Burning, 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

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

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

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

topic: Bullying, Book, Keys, Book Banning, Censorship In Books

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

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

- Laurie Halse Anderson

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

You have not converted a man, because you have silenced him.

- John Morley, 1st Viscount Morley of Blackburn

source: "On Compromise". Book by John Morley, 1874.

topic: Freedom, Men, Political, Censorship In Books

Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.

- Oscar Wilde

topic: Book, Literature, Wells, Great Writing, Libraries Books And Reading

The burning of a book is a sad, sad sight, for even though a book is nothing but ink and paper, it feels as if the ideas contained in the book are disappearing as the pages turn to ashes and the cover and binding--which is the term for the stitching and glue that holds the pages together--blacken and curl as the flames do their wicked work. When someone is burning a book, they are showing utter contempt for all of the thinking that produced its ideas, all of the labor that went into its words and sentences, and all of the trouble that befell the author . . .

- Daniel Handler

topic: Book, Sadness, Thinking, Ink And Paper, Book Burning

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

A good book is the precious life-blood of a master-spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life, and as such it must surely be a necessary commodity.

- Penelope Fitzgerald

topic: Book, Blood, Purpose, Precious Life, Censoring

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

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

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

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

He who destroys a good book kills reason itself.

- John Milton

source: Areopagitica (1644)

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

The dirtiest book of all is the expurgated book.

- Walt Whitman

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

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

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