Art is never chaste. It ought to be forbidden to ignorant innocents, never allowed into contact with those not sufficiently prepared. Yes, art is dangerous. Where it is chaste, it is not art.
—Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) Spanish Painter, Sculptor, Artist
Censure is the tax a man pays to the public for being eminent.
—Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) Irish Satirist
What progress we are making. In the Middle Ages they would have burned me. Now they are content with burning my books.
—Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) Austrian Psychiatrist, Psychoanalytic
Fear of corrupting the mind of the younger generation is the loftiest of cowardice.
—Holbrook Jackson (1874–1948) British Journalist, Writer, Publisher
Nature knows no indecencies; man invents them.
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
Here we have bishops, priests, and deacons, a Censorship Board, vigilant librarians, confraternities and sodalities, Duce Maria, Legions of Mary, Knights of this Christian order and Knights of that one, all surrounding the sinner’s free will in an embattled circle.
—Sean O’Casey (1880–1964) Irish Dramatist, Memoirist
Censorship is the height of vanity.
—Martha Graham (1894–1991) American Choreographer
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.
—Nadine Gordimer (1923–2014) South African Novelist, Short-Story Writer
When truth is no longer free, freedom is no longer real: the truths of the police are the truths of today.
—Jacques Prevert (1900–77) French Poet, Screenwriter
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 (1902–92) Russian-born American Journalist
You do ill if you praise, but worse if you censure what you do not rightly understand.
—Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Polymath, Painter, Sculptor, Inventor, Architect
I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) American Head of State, Lawyer
Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) American Head of State, Lawyer
All censorships exist to prevent anyone from challenging current conceptions and existing institutions. All progress is initiated by challenging current conceptions, and executed by supplanting existing institutions. Consequently the first condition of progress is the removal of censorships. There is the whole case against censorships in a nutshell.
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish Playwright
I think you can leave the arts, superior or inferior, to the conscience of mankind.
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939) Irish Poet, Dramatist
Assassination is the extreme form of censorship.
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish Playwright
The danger of censorship in cultural media increases in proportion to the degree to which one approaches the winning of a mass audience.
—James T. Farrell (1904–79) American Novelist
Every burned book enlightens the world.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
If we can’t stamp out literature in the country, we can at least stop its being brought in from outside.
—Evelyn Waugh (1903–66) British Novelist, Essayist, Biographer
Freedom of the Press, if it means anything at all, means the freedom to criticize and oppose.
—George Orwell (1903–50) English Novelist, Journalist
He who would acquire fame must not show himself afraid of censure. The dread of censure is the death of genius.
—William Gilmore Simms (1806–70) American Poet, Historian, Novelist, Editor
Art made tongue-tied by authority.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
Few persons have sufficient wisdom to prefer censure, which is useful, to praise which deceives them.
—Francois de La Rochefoucauld (1613–80) French Writer
Whenever books are burned men also in the end are burned.
—Heinrich Heine (1797–1856) German Poet, Writer
Censorship is advertising paid by the government.
—Federico Fellini (1920–93) Italian Filmmaker
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 (1844–1924) French Novelist
It seems not more reasonable to leave the right of printing unrestrained, because writers may be afterwards censured, than it would be to sleep with doors unbolted, because by our laws we can hang a thief.
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist
I find the pain of a little censure, even when it is unfounded, is more acute than the pleasure of much praise.
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) American Head of State, Lawyer
Instead of asking—“How much damage will the work in question bring about?” why not ask—“How much good? How much joy?”
—Henry Miller (1891–1980) American Novelist
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 (1913–95) Canadian Novelist, Playwright, Essayist
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