Censorship Quotes - Page 3

• The only valid censorship of ideas is the right of people not to listen.

  Tommy Smothers

  Ideas, People, Hearing Loss

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• The more freely information flows, the stronger the society becomes, because then citizens of countries around the world can hold their own governments accountable. They can begin to think for themselves.

  Barack Obama

  Country, Thinking, Government

  "Barack Obama Criticises Internet Censorship at Meeting in China". www.theguardian.com. November 16, 2009.

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• Adam was but human—this explains it all. He did not want the apple for the apple's sake, he wanted it only because it was forbidden. The mistake was in not forbidding the serpent; then he would have eaten the serpent.

  Mark Twain

  Mistake, Apples, Want

  Pudd'nhead Wilson ch. 2, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" (1894)

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• The State has always one purpose: to limit, control, subordinate the individual and subject him to the general purpose Through its censorship, its supervision, and its police the State tries to obstruct all free activity and sees this repression as its duty, because the instinct of self-preservation demands it. The State does not permit me to use my thoughts to their full value and communicate them to other men unless they are its own Otherwise it shuts me up.

  Max Stirner

  Men, Self, Police

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• Whenever books are burned, men also in the end are burned.

  Heinrich Heine

  Inspirational, Book, Men

  'Almansor' (1823) l. 245

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• Don't censor yourself to comfort their ignorance.

  Jon Stewart

  Ignorance, Comforting, Comedian

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• 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

  Art, Ignorant, Dangerous

  "Picasso". Book by Antonina Vallentin (p. 168), 1963 (1957).

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• I think the best thing in cases of censorship or things like this is to get as much media as possible.

  Kathy Acker

  Thinking, Media, Cases

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• Dat veniam corvis, vexat censura columbas. - Censure acquits the raven, but pursues the dove.

  Juvenal

  Ravens, Dove, Pursue

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• Words alone can rarely justify censorship. If we censor words themselves without looking at the context, we could shut down much of the entertainment industry.

  Witold Walczak

  Entertainment, Justify, Industry

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• Censorship laws are blunt instruments, not sharp scalpels. Once enacted, they are easily misapplied to merely unpopular or only marginally dangerous speech.

  Alan Dershowitz

  Law, Freedom Of Speech, Blunt

  Alan Dershowitz (2008). “Finding, Framing, and Hanging Jefferson: A Lost Letter, a Remarkable Discovery, and Freedom of Speech in an Age of Terrorism”, p.191, John Wiley & Sons

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• The whole principle (censorship) is wrong; it's like demanding that grown men live on skim milk because the baby can't eat steak.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Baby, Men, Principles

  Robert A. Heinlein (2013). “The Man Who Sold the Moon and Orphans of the Sky”, p.206, Baen Publishing Enterprises

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• One of the curious things about censorship is that no one seems to believe in it for himself. We want censorship to protect someone else— the young, the unstable, the suggestible, the stupid. I have never heard of anyone who wanted a film or speaker banned because otherwise he himself might be harmed.

  Edgar Dale

  Stupid, Want, Might

  "Can you give the public what it wants?".

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• 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

  Art, Freedom, Matter

  Willa Cather (1988). “Willa Cather on Writing: Critical Studies on Writing as an Art”, p.26, U of Nebraska Press

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• Free societies...are societies in motion, and with motion comes tension, dissent, friction. Free people strike sparks, and those sparks are the best evidence of freedom's existence.

  Salman Rushdie

  People, Atheism, Society

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• Assassination is the extreme form of censorship.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Death, Witty, Government

  The Shewing-up of Blanco Posnet preface (1911)

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• Free speech is the whole thing, the whole ball game. Free speech is life itself.

  Salman Rushdie

  Freedom, Games, Speech

  Excerpts From Rushdie's Address: 1,000 Days 'Trapped Inside a Metaphor', archive.nytimes.com. December 12, 1991.

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• Censorship is the tool of those who have the need to hide actualities from themselves and from others. Their fear is only their inability to face what is real, and I can't vent any anger against them. I only feel this appalling sadness. Somewhere, in their upbringing, they were shielded against the total facts of our existence. They were only taught to look one way when many ways exist.

  Charles Bukowski

  Real, Sadness, Inability

  Charles Bukowski (2015). “On Writing”, p.132, Canongate Books

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

  James Harvey Robinson

  Everyday, Fool, Facts

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• Your own mind is a sacred enclosure into which nothing harmful can enter except by your permission.

  Arnold Bennett

  Positive, Happiness, Attitude

  Arnold Bennett (2013). “The Human Machine: The Secret Edition - Open Your Heart to the Real Power and Magic of Living Faith and Let the Heaven Be in You, Go Deep Inside Yourself and Back, Feel the Crazy and Divine Love and Live for Your Dreams”, p.26, Lulu Press, Inc

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• We have a natural right to make use of our pens as of our tongue, at our peril, risk and hazard.

  Voltaire

  Risk, Freedom Of Speech, Hazards

  Francois Voltaire (1977). “The Portable Voltaire”, p.103, Penguin

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• Right now I think censorship is necessary; the things they're doing and saying in films right now just shouldn't be allowed. There's no dignity anymore and I think that's very important.

  Mae West

  Thinking, Important, Dignity

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• All books can be indecent books, though recent books are bolder.
  For filth, I'm glad to say, is in the mind of the beholder.
  When correctly viewed, everything is lewd.
  I could tell you things about Peter Pan
  and the Wizard of OZ, there's a dirty old man!

  Tom Lehrer

  Book, Dirty, Men

  Song: Smut, Album: That Was the Year That Was

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• 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

  Book, Reading, Mind

  Theodore Schroeder (1911). “"Obscene" Literature and Constitutional Law: A Forensic Defense of Freedom of the Press”

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• The press is easier to strangle than to look in the eyes.

  Winston Churchill

  Eye, Looks, Easier

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