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
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
Every burned book or house enlightens the world; every suppressed or expunged word reverberates through the earth from side to side.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
If there had been a censorship of the press in Rome we should have had today neither Horace nor Juvenal, nor the philosophical writings of Cicero.
—Voltaire (1694–1778) French Philosopher, Author
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
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
Freedom of the Press, if it means anything at all, means the freedom to criticize and oppose.
—George Orwell (1903–50) English Novelist, Journalist
The condition every art requires is, not so much freedom from restriction, as freedom from adulteration and from the intrusion of foreign matter.
—Willa Cather (1873–1947) American Novelist, Writer
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
Nature knows no indecencies; man invents them.
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
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
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
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
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
It is folly for an eminent person to think of escaping censure, and a weakness to be affected by it.—All the illustrious persons of antiquity, and indeed of every age, have passed through this fiery persecution.—There is no defence against reproach but obscurity; it is a kind of concomitant to greatness, as satires and invectives were an essential part of a Roman triumph.
—Joseph Addison (1672–1719) English Essayist, Poet, Playwright, Politician
The trouble with censors is that they worry if a girl has cleavage. They ought to worry if she hasn’t any.
—Marilyn Monroe (1926–62) American Actor, Model, Singer
The upshot was, my paintings must burn that English artists might finally learn.
—D. H. Lawrence (1885–1930) English Novelist, Playwright, Poet, Essayist, Literary Critic
Censor, n. An officer of certain governments, employed to suppress the works of genius. Among the Romans the censor was an inspector of public morals, but the public morals of modern nations will not bear inspection.
—Ambrose Bierce (1842–1913) American Short-story Writer, Journalist
As to the evil which results from a censorship, it is impossible to measure it, for it is impossible to tell where it ends.
—Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832) British Philosopher, Economist
Every burned book enlightens the world.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
Few persons have sufficient wisdom to prefer censure, which is useful, to praise which deceives them.
—Francois de La Rochefoucauld (1613–80) French Writer
A man’s first care should be to avoid the reproaches of his own heart; his next, to escape the censures of the world. If the last interferes with the former, it ought to be entirely neglected; but otherwise there cannot be a greater satisfaction to an honest mind, than to see those approbations which it gives itself, seconded by the applauses of the public. A man is more sure of his conduct, when the verdict which he passes upon his own behavior is thus warranted and confirmed by the opinion of all that know him.
—Joseph Addison (1672–1719) English Essayist, Poet, Playwright, Politician
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
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
Censure is the tax a man pays to the public for being eminent.
—Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) Irish Satirist
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
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
Censorship is the height of vanity.
—Martha Graham (1894–1991) American Choreographer
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
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
Art made tongue-tied by authority.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
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
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
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, Novelist, Historian
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
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
Wherever they burn books they will also, in the end, burn human beings.
—Heinrich Heine (1797–1856) German Poet, Writer
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
I am of course confident that I will fulfill my tasks as a writer in all circumstances—from my grave even more successfully and more irrefutably than in my lifetime. No one can bar the road to truth, and to advance its cause I am prepared to accept even death. But may it be that repeated lessons will finally teach us not to stop the writer’s pen during his lifetime? At no time has this ennobled our history.
—Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918–2008) Russian Dissident Novelist
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
Fear of corrupting the mind of the younger generation is the loftiest of cowardice.
—Holbrook Jackson (1874–1948) British Journalist, Writer, Publisher
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
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
The point is obvious. There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running about with lit matches. Every minority, be it Baptist/Unitarian, Irish/Italian/Octogenarian/Zen Buddhist, Zionist/Seventhday Adventist, Women’s Lib/Republican, Mattachine/Four Square Gospel feels it has the will, the right, the duty to douse the kerosene, light the fuse. Every dimwit editor whosees himself as the source of all dreary blanc-mange plain porridge unleavened literature, licks his guillotine and eyes the neck of any author who dares to speak above a whisper or write above a nursery rhyme.
—Ray Bradbury (b.1920) American Novelist, Short Story Writer
Censorship, like charity, should begin at home; but unlike charity, it should end there.
—Clare Boothe Luce (1903–87) American Playwright, Diplomat, Journalist, Diplomat, Elected Rep
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
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
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