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) American Journalist, Educator, Author
Assassination is the extreme form of censorship.
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish Playwright
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
The censure of those who are opposed to us, is the highest commendation that can be given us.
—Montesquieu (1689–1755) French Political Philosopher, Jurist
I am mortified to be told that, in the United States of America, the sale of a book can become a subject of inquiry, and of criminal inquiry too.
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) American Head of State, Lawyer
Every burned book enlightens the world.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
Censorship is the height of vanity.
—Martha Graham (1894–1991) American Choreographer
I am still against any kind of censorship. It’s a subject in my life that has been very important.
—Bernardo Bertolucci (1941–2018) Italian Film Director
As well almost kill a man, as kill a good book; for the life of the one is but a few short years, while that of the other may be for ages.—Who kills a man kills a reasonable creature, God’s image; but he who destroys a good book, kills reason itself; kills as it were, the image of God.
—John Milton (1608–74) English Poet, Civil Servant, Scholar, Debater
Few persons have sufficient wisdom to prefer censure, which is useful, to praise which deceives them.
—Francois de La Rochefoucauld (1613–80) French Writer
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
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
Censorship ends in logical completeness when nobody is allowed to read any books except the books that nobody reads.
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish Playwright
The upshot was, my paintings must burn that English artists might finally learn.
—D. H. Lawrence (1885–1930) English Novelist, Playwright, Poet, Essayist, Critic
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
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 (1898–1980) American Judge
Fear of corrupting the mind of the younger generation is the loftiest of cowardice.
—Holbrook Jackson (1874–1948) British Journalist, Writer, Editor
No member of society has the right to teach any doctrine contrary to what society holds to be true.
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist
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 (1819–91) American Novelist, Short Story Writer, Essayist, Poet
Woe to that nation whose literature is cut short by the intrusion of force. This is not merely interference with freedom of the press but the sealing up of a nation’s heart, the excision of its memory.
—Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918–2008) Russian Dissident Novelist
Your own mind is a sacred enclosure into which nothing harmful can enter except by your permission.
—Arnold Bennett (1867–1931) British Novelist, Playwright, Critic
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
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
The readiest and surest way to get rid of censure, is to correct ourselves.
—Demosthenes (384–322 BCE) Greek Statesman, Orator
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
Censorship is advertising paid by the government.
—Federico Fellini (1920–93) Italian Filmmaker
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
The whole principle [of censorship] is wrong. It’s like demanding that grown men live on skim milk because the baby can’t have steak.
—Robert A. Heinlein (1907–88) American Science Fiction Writer
Wherever they burn books they will also, in the end, burn human beings.
—Heinrich Heine (1797–1856) German Poet, Writer
The fact is that censorship always defeats its own purpose, for it creates, in the end, the kind of society that is incapable of exercising real discretion.
—Henry Steele Commager (1902–98) American Historian, Academic
Leave a Reply