95 Censor Quotes

Following is our list of censor quotations and slogans full of insightful wisdom and perspective about no censor.

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Short Censor Quotes

  • Don't join the book burners! — Dwight D. Eisenhower
  • He who destroys a good book kills reason itself. — John Milton
  • The more we oblige, the more we self-censor, the more we appease, the bolder the enemy gets. — Ayaan Hirsi Ali
  • Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it. — Mark Twain
  • The only valid censorship of ideas is the right of people not to listen. — Tommy Smothers
  • The worst censors are those prohibiting criticism of the theory of evolution in the classroom. — Phyllis Schlafly
  • Don't censor yourself to comfort their ignorance. — Jon Stewart
  • The Thought Police: To censor and protect. — Craig Bruce
  • The Thought Police: To censor and protect. — Craig Reucassel
  • There is more than one way to burn a book. — Ray Bradbury

Censoring Books Quotes

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

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

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 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 is the child of fear and the father of ignorance. — Laurie Halse Anderson

No Censor Quotes

The video of 'Paranoid Android' has been censored by MTV. They took all nipples out of the cartoon, but they had no problem with the scene in which a man cuts off his own arms and legs. — Thom Yorke

It is our attitude toward free thought and free expression that will determine our fate. There must be no limit on the range of temperate discussion, no limits on thought. No subject must be taboo. No censor must preside at our assemblies. — William O. Douglas

There's more than one way to be a girl — Lauren Faust

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

No government ought to be without censors; and where the press is free, no one ever will. Chance is the pseudonym of God when he did not want to sign. — Anatole France

Photographs have always been the tar baby of censors and obscenity laws. Literature can certainly (if it's any good) conjure up the most pornographic imagination. But photographs dare to be real. No matter how contrived or constructed they are, there's that damn body staring you in the face. — Susie Bright

Usually the audience has no idea that the censored version of whatever movie they're watching isn't the original. — Todd Solondz

Countries that censor news and information must recognize that from an economic standpoint, there is no distinction between censoring political speech and commercial speech. If businesses in your nations are denied access to either type of information, it will inevitably impact on growth. — Hillary Clinton

I am opposed to censorship. Censors are pretty sure fools. I have no confidence in the suppression of everyday facts. — James Harvey Robinson

I did not agree..to having my article censored. ...The published report of the conference gives my name as a participant, but you will not find in it the paper I read. ...Scientists as a group are no more, and no less, influenced by emotional and irrational reactions than other people are. — John Yudkin

Censorship Quotes

Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech. — Benjamin Franklin

The first thing dictators do is finish free press, to establish censorship. There is no doubt that a free press is the first enemy of dictatorship. — Fidel Castro

Political correctness is neither political nor is it correct. It amounts to social censorship, and the sooner we spit it out, the better. — Jeff Cooper

Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost. — Thomas Jefferson

Freedom of the press is not just important to democracy, it is democracy. - Walter Cronkite

Freedom of the press is not just important to democracy, it is democracy. — Walter Cronkite

Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear. — Harry S. Truman

There is little value in insuring the survival of our nation if our traditions do not survive with it. And there is very grave danger that an announced need for increased security will be seized upon by those anxious to expand its meaning to the very limits of official censorship and concealment. — John F. Kennedy

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. — George R. R. Martin

The paper burns, but the words fly away. - Rabbi Akiva

The paper burns, but the words fly away. — Rabbi Akiva

Censorship only perpetuates ignorance and prevents the open exchange of ideas. — Bret Weinstein

Self Censorship Quotes

Self-censorship is insulting to the self. Timidity is a hopeless way forward. — Ai Weiwei

Self-censorship, the most important and most successful form of censorship, is rampant. Debate is identified with dissent, which is in turn identified with disloyalty. There is a widespread feeling that, in this new, open-ended emergency, we may not be able to 'afford' our traditional freedoms. — Susan Sontag

SeLF censorsHIP? Not my strong suit...I dont want to be a total d o u c h e b a g , but a little bit of one. — Misha Collins

But poets were not considered dangerous and they were advised to exercise self-censorship. At most, poets were requested not to write at all. I took advantage of this negative liberty. — Eugenio Montale

The worst evil is - and that's the product of censorship - is the self-censorship, because that twists spines, that destroys my character because I have to think something else and say something else, I have to always control myself. — Milos Forman

I think the enemy is self-censorship. In a free society the biggest danger is that you're afraid to the point where you censor yourself. — Tim Robbins

Censorship is the commonest social blasphemy because it is mostly concealed, built into us by indolence, self-interest and cowardice. — John Osborne

Self-censorship is a lie to yourself; if you are going to be trying to seriously create art, to create literary art, and you decide to hold back, to censor yourself, then you are a fool to yourself and it would be better that you kept your mouth shut and did not speak. — Salman Rushdie

And yet on the other hand unless warinesse be us'd, as good almost kill a Man as kill a good Book; who kills a Man kills a reasonable creature, Gods Image, but hee who destroyes a good Booke, kills reason it selfe, kills the Image of God, as it were in the eye. — John Milton

You should not be subjected to the pressures, the intimidation, whether by Government or by the private sector, which would force you into self-censorship. — Alfred-Maurice de Zayas

People Writing About Censor

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Read quotes by Dwight D. Eisenhower

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Read quotes by John Milton

John Milton
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Read quotes by Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Ayaan Hirsi Ali
quotes on education, religion and marriage

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Read quotes by Mark Twain

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Read quotes by Phyllis Schlafly

Phyllis Schlafly
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Read quotes by Jon Stewart

Jon Stewart
quotes on education, politics and leadership

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More Censor Quotes

The Government's power to censor the press was abolished so that the press would remain forever free to censure the Government. The press was protected so that it could bare the secrets of government and inform the people. Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government. — Hugo Black

What I find very attractive, what I find sexual, are people who are unapologetic for who they are and comfortable with themselves. And I think with those two things sexual energy does come out because you're not hovering or censoring yourself, you're just being who you are. And being who you are is a very attractive quality in a person. — Katherine Moennig

Difference of opinion is advantageous in religion. The several sects perform the office of a Censor - over each other. — Thomas Jefferson

What is occurring on college campuses is about power and control - speech is impeded as a last resort, used when people fail to self-censor in response to a threat of crippling stigma and the destruction of their capacity to earn. — Bret Weinstein

Freedom of the press is essential to the preservation of a democracy; but there is a difference between freedom and license. Editorialists who tell downright lies in order to advance their own agendas do more to discredit the press than all the censors in the world. — Franklin D. Roosevelt

I think free speech is probably the coolest thing we have in this country, and again, you can label it hate speech and dismiss it, and then you're allowed to censor it. — Dana Carvey

When you have some kid, who works for Twitter in the Philippines, censoring a Nobel prize winning scientist, speaking about his area of expertise, I think we've lost the plot. — Konstantin Kisin

People are used to being stimulated. People are drunk on entertainment and when you're going out and seeing movies where 200 people are machine gunned down and vampires are tearing people's throats out, and I'm not saying that is bad or it should be censored, but people are drunk on stimuli. — Alex Jones

I never make moral judgments; I'm not qualified to do so. I am not a censor, a priest, or a politician. — Federico Fellini

Censoring what you say is one of the ways in which people who are not nice can take away your personal freedom. — Frank Zappa

Once you permit those who are convinced of their own superior rightness to censor and silence and suppress those who hold contrary opinions, just at that moment the citadel has been surrendered. — Archibald MacLeish

I myself was to experience how easily one is taken in by a lying and censored press and radio in a totalitarian state... a steady diet over the years of falsifications and distortions made a certain impression on one's mind and often misled it. — William L. Shirer

There is nothing more negligent than attempting to address a problem one finds on a branch than by censoring the leaves. — Saul Williams

If I'm a cruel satirist at least I'm not a hyprocrite: I never judge what other people do. Neither a politician nor a priest, I never censor what others do. Neither a philospher nor a psychiatrist, I never bother trying to analyze or resolve my fears and neuroses. — Federico Fellini

When you're in love, you're so happy that you want to tell people about it. But now I have to censor myself. You need to protect the happiness you have. — Emily Blunt

You have to allow your mind to create and then if you want to censor something and bring it down or point it in a different direction, then you can do it. — Queen Latifah

The worst thing you can do is censor yourself as the pencil hits the paper. You must not edit until you get it all on paper. If you can put everything down, stream-of-consciousness, you'll do yourself a service. — Stephen Sondheim

The best things in life are censored. — Woody Allen

All speech should be presumed to be protected by the Constitution, and a heavy burden should be placed on those who would censor to demonstrate with relative certainty that the speech at issue, if not censored, would lead to irremediable and immediate serious harm. — Alan Dershowitz

We seem okay with violence, but nudity we race to criticize and censor. — Eva Mendes

I used to think feminism was a liberating force - now I see many of those people are just censors under a different name. — Lydia Lunch

The most important rule: Do not, I repeat, do not censor yourself in any way. Leave your editorial mind out of the loop. Just let the ideas come pouring out in any way, shape, or form they want to. Do not judge anything. — James Scott Bell

Cats, as a class, have never completely got over the snootiness caused by the fact that in ancient Egypt they were worshipped as gods. This makes them prone to set themselves up as critics and censors of the frail and erring human beings whose lot they share. — P. G. Wodehouse

The censor boards are mere redundant forces conspiring to keep the 'bold' films out of reach of the audience. — Anurag Kashyap

Censors are energetic and righteous people but they just couldn't work a room like Abbe Lane. — Audrey Meadows

The important thing about groupthink is that it works not so much by censoring dissent as by making dissent seem somehow improbable. — James Surowiecki

You can understand Tunisia revolution as a failure to censor the internet. And Libya had that failure too. It's very difficult for governments that are autocratic and don't have broad popular support to be in power when a lot of people have these devices. That was what Arab Spring was about, that people could express this and lead to revolution. — Eric Schmidt

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