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
There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them. — Joseph Brodsky
Every burned book enlightens the world. — Ralph Waldo Emerson
He who destroys a good book kills reason itself. — John Milton
Censoring Books Image Quotes
There comes a point in your life when you need to stop reading other people's book and write your own.
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
Censorship reflects a society's lack of confidence in itself. It is a hallmark of an authoritarian regime. — Potter Stewart
There comes a day when you realize turning the page is the best feeling in the world, because you realize there is so much more to the book than the page you were stuck on.
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
The abuse dies in a day; but the denial slays the life of the people and entombs the hope of the race. — Charles Bradlaugh
Each time you read a book, a tree smiles knowing there's life after death.
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
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
The book to read is not the one that thinks for you but the one which makes you think.
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
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
You dont have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.
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 victimization of children is nowhere forbidden; what is forbidden is to write about it. — Alice Miller
Banned Books Quotes
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
You know what they say: When people start burning books they'll soon burn human beings. — Cornelia Funke
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
I went away in my head, into a book.
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
There is more than one way to burn a book. — Ray Bradbury
Any book worth banning is a book worth reading. — Isaac Asimov
WIth freedom, books, flowers, and the moon, who could not be happy.
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
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
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
A book is a dream that you hold in your hand.
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
A room without books is like a body without a soul.
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
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
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
Books won't stay banned. They won't burn. Ideas won't go to jail. — Alfred Whitney Griswold
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
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
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
Books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a potency of life in them....I know they are as lively and as vigorously productive as those fabulous dragon's teeth and being sown up and down, may chance to spring up armed men. — John Milton
Those tragic comedians, the Chamber of Commerce red hunters, the Women's Christian Temperance Union smellers, the censors of books, the Klan regulators, the Methodist prowlers, the Baptist guardians of sacred vessels-we have the national mentality of a police lieutenant. — H. L. Mencken
The source of better ideas is wisdom. The surest path to wisdom is a liberal education. — Alfred Whitney Griswold
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
The censors don't bother with fantasy books, especially old ones. They can't understand them. They think it's all kids' stuff. They'd die if they knew what The Chronicles of Narnia were really about. — G. Willow Wilson
If the fires of freedom and civil liberties burn low in other lands, they must be made brighter in our own. 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. If in other lands the eternal truths of the past are threatened by intolerance we must provide a safe place for their perpetuation. — Franklin D. Roosevelt
Children deprived of words become school dropouts; dropouts deprived of hope behave delinquently. Amateur censors blame delinquency on reading immoral books and magazines, when in fact, the inability to read anything is the basic trouble. — Peter S. Jennison
Sometimes you have to censor books. When I read 'Peter Rabbit,' I skip the part about Peter's father ending up in one of Mrs. McGregor's pies. I also hid the book of 'Grimm Fairy Tales.' They're just too grim for my grandkids. Reality will come soon enough. — Regina Brett
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
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 allexcept 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
I never heard of anyone who was really literate or who ever really loved books who wanted to suppress any of them. Censors only read a book with great difficulty, moving their lips as they puzzle out each syllable, when someone tells them that the book is unfit to read. — Robertson Davies
There's this quote by a writer, Emil Cioran, he's a Romanian writer. He says that you should only put things in books that you would never dare to say to people in real life. So there is that feeling of acute embarrassment, or that you've been too revealing. I think it's some kind of survival mechanism where I never think of the reader, ever. Because then I would start censoring myself. — Steve Toltz
Love your material. Nothing frightens the inner critic more than the writer who loves her work. The writer who is enamored of her material forgets all about censoring herself. She doesn't stop to wonder if her book is any good, or who will publish it, or what people will think. She writes in a trance, losing track of time, hearing only her characters in her head. — Allegra Goodman
If only it were God's will that printed and written materials have as much influence on the people as the princes and their censors fear! Considering the countless good books we have, the world would have changed for the better a long time ago. — Franz Grillparzer
Everyone should have the right to go off and do their music or do their books. The people who are in the position to censor they're really not down to reality where that certain artists are coming from. — Henry Rollins
Authors have to write for their characters, for who they are, that's the strength of books. Don't worry about censors. Just write the story you need to tell and the rewards will come. — Ellen Hopkins
All the excitements of a prohibited book had their usual effect, one of which, as always, is to expose the fact that the censors don't know what they are talking about. — Christopher Hitchens
I've been quoting the book [on Peter Sutcliffe] constantly in rehearsals. Some members of the cast have stated their disapproval that it should even have been written. Some of the women have expressed more - disgust and anger. What are they saying? They'd prefer not to know, not to understand? They'd prefer certain areas of life to be censored? Isn't that partly what breeds the Sutcliffes and the Nilsens? — Antony Sher
My first book, 'Running Loose', was censored back in 1983 or '84. Every book I've written since has been censored somewhere. — Chris Crutcher
In books I found explicitly, flamboyantly, everything censored in life. — Lynne Sharon Schwartz
Are we to have a censor whose imprimatur shall say what books may be sold, and what we may buy? And who is thus to dogmatize religious opinions for our citizens? Whose foot is to be the measure to which ours are all to be cut or stretched? Is a priest to be our inquisitor, or shall a layman, simple as ourselves, set up his reason as the rule of what we are to read, and what we must believe? — Thomas Jefferson
Censors never go after books unless kids already like them. I don’t even think they know to go after books until they know that children are interested in reading this book, therefore there must be something in it that’s wrong. — Judy Blume
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
From fire, water, the passage of time, neglectful readers, and the hand of the censor, each of my books has escaped to tell me its story. — Alberto Manguel
In Conclusion
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