100 Banned Books Quotes
Following is our list of banned books quotations and slogans full of insightful wisdom and perspective about why books should not be banned.
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Famous Banned Books Quotes
God forbid that any book should be banned. The practice is as indefensible as infanticide. — Rebecca West
I always order the banned books from a black market dealer in California, figuring if the State of Mississippi banned them, they must be good. — Kathryn Stockett
The books that the world calls immoral are the books that show the world its own shame. — Oscar Wilde
Don't join the book burners! — Dwight D. Eisenhower
Don't join the book burners... Don't be afraid to go in your library and read every book. — Dwight D. Eisenhower
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
Every burned book enlightens the world. — Ralph Waldo Emerson
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
The Koran is a fascist book which incites violence. That is why this book, just like [Adolf Hitler's] Mein Kampf, must be banned. — Geert Wilders
The more things are forbidden, the more popular they become. — Mark Twain
Those who want to burn books are either afraid of the ideas contained within the covers or they haven't the courage to stand up for the views which they themselves profess to hold. — Tommy Douglas
They don't gotta burn the books they just remove 'em. — Zack de la Rocha
Second hand books are wild books, homeless books; they have come together in vast flocks of variegated feather, and have a charm which the domesticated volumes of the library lack. — Virginia Woolf
Maybe if literature was prohibited the same way as cocaine, people out of pure curiosity would try to get a couple of lines — Alejandro Jodorowsky
Books ARE a form of political action. Books are knowledge. Books are reflection. Books change your mind. — Toni Morrison
Short Banned Books Quotes
- There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them. — Joseph Brodsky
- Things forbidden have a secret charm. — Tacitus
- There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them. — Joseph Brodsky
- Some books leave us free and some books make us free. — Ralph Waldo Emerson
- Books are humanity in print. — Barbara Tuchman
- Governments are suspicious of literature because it is a force that eludes them. — Emile Zola
- Some books should be tasted, some devoured, but only a few should be chewed and digested thoroughly. — Francis Bacon
- Some books should be tasted, some devoured, but only a few should be chewed and digested thoroughly. — Cornelia Funke
- Books are the treasured wealth of the world and the fit inheritance of generations and nations. — Henry David Thoreau
- Libraries were full of ideas-perhaps the most dangerous and powerful of all weapons. — Sarah J. Maas
Banned Books Image Quotes
Read Banned Books Quotes
I don't want to be shut out from the truth. If they ban books, they might as well lock us away from the world. — Rory Edwards
Any book worth banning is a book worth reading. — Isaac Asimov
Yes, books are dangerous. They should be dangerous - they contain ideas. — Pete Hautman
Reading develops cognitive skills. It trains our minds to think critically and to question what you are told. This is why dictators censor or ban books. It's why it was illegal to teach slaves to read. It's why girls in developing countries have acid thrown in their faces when they walk to school. — Karin Slaughter
Censorship is the child of fear and the father of ignorance. — Laurie Halse Anderson
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
I would love mainland Chinese to read my book. There is a Chinese translation which I worked on myself, published in Hong Kong and Taiwan. Many copies have gone into China but it is still banned. — Jung Chang
We're living in a world where [Judy Blume] books were ever banned, and now like "Fifty Shades of Grey" is being read in high schools. Like it's just a wild. — Lena Dunham
The Bible-banned, burned, beloved-is more widely read and more frequently attacked than any other book in history. — Charles Colson
The reason books get banned, but movies can do almost anything is because the novel is more powerful than a movie. The reader is part of the creation of the story because they must imagine and envision it. There is creation in the act of reading. — Carolyn Mackler
Censoring Books Quotes
He who destroys a good book kills reason itself. — John Milton
Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it. — Mark Twain
All censorships exist to prevent anyone from challenging current conceptions and existing institutions. — George Bernard Shaw
Censorship reflects a society's lack of confidence in itself. It is a hallmark of an authoritarian regime. — Potter Stewart
There is more than one way to burn a book. — Ray Bradbury
The abuse dies in a day; but the denial slays the life of the people and entombs the hope of the race. — Charles Bradlaugh
If in other lands the press and books and literature of all kinds are censored, we must redouble our efforts here to keep them free — Franklin D. Roosevelt
Libraries should be open to all - except the censor. — John F. Kennedy
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
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
Censorship In Books Quotes
Obscenity is not a quality inherent in a book or picture, but is solely and exclusively a contribution of the reading mind, and hence cannot be defined in terms of the qualities of a book or picture. — Theodore Schroeder
Books of apostates, heretics, schismatics, and all other writers defending heresy or schism or in any attacking the foundations of religion, are altogether prohibited. — Pope Leo XIII
To limit the press is to insult a nation; to prohibit reading of certain books is to declare the inhabitants to be either fools or slaves: such a prohibition ought to fill them with disdain. — Claude Adrien Helvetius
People die, but books never die. — Franklin D. Roosevelt
There's more than one way to be a girl — Lauren Faust
Better a thousandfold abuse of free speech than denial of free speech. — Charles Bradlaugh
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
Let us welcome controversial books and controversial authors. — John F. Kennedy
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
People die, but books never die. No man and no force can abolish memory. — Franklin D. Roosevelt
People Writing About Banned Books
More Banned Books Quotes
You know what they say: When people start burning books they'll soon burn human beings. — Cornelia Funke
Although there are those who wish to ban my books because I have used language that is painful, I have chosen to use the language that was spoken during the period, for I refuse to whitewash history. The language was painful and life was painful for many African Americans, including my family. I remember the pain. — Mildred D. Taylor
It hardly matters why a library is destroyed: every banning, curtailment, shredding, plunder or loot gives rise (at least as a ghostly presence) to a louder, clearer, more durable library of the banned, looted, plundered, shredded or curtailed. — Alberto Manguel
In addition, we were unable to meet openly to discuss the progress of the book, for we were both on the list of persons banned from communicating with other banned persons. — Ruth First
Religious fundamentalists in Bangladesh have always argued for a ban on my books. — Taslima Nasrin
Possession of books denounced as heretical was made a criminal offense. Copies of such books were burned and destroyed. But in Upper Egypt, someone, possibly a monk from a nearby monastery of St Pachomius, took the banned books and hid them from destruction - in the jar where they remained buried for almost 1,600 years. — Elaine Pagels
Ideas are only lethal if you suppress and don't discuss them. Ignorance is not bliss, it's stupid. Banning books shows you don't trust your kids to think and you don't trust yourself to be able to talk to them. — Anna Quindlen
Books won't stay banned. They won't burn. Ideas won't go to jail. — Alfred Whitney Griswold
Young minds - young brains - need stories and ideas like the ones in those [censored and banned] books in order to grow. They need ideas that you disagree with. They need ideas that I disagree with. Or they'll never be able to figure out what ideas they believe in. — Lev Grossman
Dollars damn me; and the malicious Devil is forever grinning in upon me, holding the door ajar. ... What I feel most moved to write, that is banned - it will not pay. Yet, altogether, write the other way I cannot. So the product is a final hash, and all my books are botches. — Herman Melville
Something will be offensive to someone in every book, so you've got to fight it. — Judy Blume
I left Beijing in 1987, shortly before my books were banned there, but have returned continually. — Ma Jian
Although my book is banned I am still allowed to go to China and travel. There is no longer the kind of control that Mao used to have-there have been deep fundamental changes in society. — Jung Chang
The Local Paper here asked that me books be banned........THE HIGHEST PRAISE for an Irish writer. — Ken Bruen
I hate it that Americans are taught to fear some books and some ideas as though they were diseases. — Kurt Vonnegut
To vest a few fallible men — prosecutors, judges, jurors — with vast powers of literary or artistic censorship, to convert them into what J. S. Mill called a "moral police," is to make them despotic arbiters of literary products. If one day they ban mediocre books as obscene, another day they may do likewise to a work of genius. — Jerome Frank
I wrote 'Tom Sawyer' and 'Huck Finn' for adults exclusively, and it always distressed me when I find that boys and girls have been allowed access to them. The mind that becomes soiled in youth can never again be washed clean. — Mark Twain
Books wont stay banned. They wont burn. Ideas wont 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
It's red hot, mate. I hate to think of this sort of book getting in the wrong hands. As soon as I've finished this, I shall recommend they ban it. — Tony Hancock
A lot of authors see their book being banned or challenged as a badge of honor. But for me, it's nothing but frustrating and upsetting. I hear from readers that my work encouraged them to ask for help or reach out to someone about the situation they're in. When you hear stories like that on a daily basis and then hear adults call for your work to be banned, it's proof of why the stigma around these issues is so dangerous. — Jay Asher
I thought [books ban] was crazy. Really my thoughts were "This is America, we don't do this here" but of course I know a lot better now. And I wasn't the only one. Norma Klein was writing at the same time. Her books were going. So many of us. When you say to me, no you can't do this I say, oh yes I can. — Judy Blume
When [books ban] happened, I felt completely alone and that was scary and sad. — Judy Blume
It didn't happen in the 70s. So I had a whole decade when I was writing these books and maybe there was a little bit here or there but there was no big effort to ban books. — Judy Blume
As an author, you go into the school, it gets written about in the paper. It sucks that your book was banned, but you almost benefit from it. The bummer is all of the incredible educators. Nobody is writing about them. They are on the frontlines still, to this day, fighting to reinstate those programs. — Matt de la Pena
In Conclusion
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