Book Banning Quotes

• Any book worth banning is a book worth reading.

  Isaac Asimov

  Book, Reading, Worth Reading

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• 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

  Book, Sight, Giving

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• Without free speech no search for Truth is possible; without free speech no discovery of Truth is useful.

  Charles Bradlaugh

  Discovery, Freedom Of Speech, Censorship In Books

  Charles Bradlaugh's speech at Hall of Science (circa 1880), as quoted in Annie Besant "Annie Besant: An Autobiography", 1893.

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• Restriction of free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us.

  William O. Douglas

  Teaching, Rights In America, Political Revolution

  "The One Un-American Act". William O. Douglas' speech to the Author's Guild Council in New York on receiving the 1951 Lauterbach Award, December 3, 1952.

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• 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

  Hero, Imagination, Forever

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• Books won't stay banned. They won't burn. Ideas won't 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

  Education, Running, Fear

  "Quora: What Does Freedom of Speech Mean?". www.yahoo.com. May 13, 2017.

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• The abuse dies in a day; but the denial slays the life of the people and entombs the hope of the race.

  Charles Bradlaugh

  Ignorance, Race, People

  Charles Bradlaugh's speech at Hall of Science (circa 1880), as quoted in Annie Besant "Annie Besant: An Autobiography", 1893.

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• 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/Seventh-day Adventist, Women's Lib/Republican, Mattachine/FourSquareGospel feels it has the will, the right, the duty to douse the kerosene, light the fuse. Every dimwit editor who sees 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

  Running, Buddhist, Book

  Ray Bradbury (2012). “Fahrenheit 451: A Novel”, p.209, Simon and Schuster

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• Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.

  James Madison

  Exercise, Secular Society, Law

  Virginia. General Assembly. House of Delegates, J. W. Randolph, James Madison (1850). “The Virginia Report of 1799-1800: Touching the Alien and Sedition Laws; Together with the Virginia Resolutions of December 21, 1798, Including the Debate and Proceedings Thereon in the House of Delegates of Virginia and Other Documents Illustrative of the Report and Resolutions”, p.136

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• I wrote 'Tom Sawyer' and 'Huck Finn' for adults exclusively, and it always distressed me when I find that boys and girls have been allowed access to them. The mind that becomes soiled in youth can never again be washed clean.

  Mark Twain

  Girl, Boys, Mind

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• Censorship is the child of fear and the father of ignorance.

  Laurie Halse Anderson

  Children, Father, Ignorance

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• The dirtiest book of all is the expurgated book.

  Walt Whitman

  Book, Freedom Of Speech, Library

  Walt Whitman, Walter Magnes Teller, Horace Traubel (1973). “Walt Whitman's Camden conversations”

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• They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Inspirational, Happiness, Peace

  Benjamin Franklin, William-Temple Franklin (1818). “Memoirs of the Life and Writings of (the Same), Continued to the Time of His Death by William Temple Franklin. - London, H. Colburn 1818”, p.270

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• Censorship always defeats it own purpose, for it creates in the end the kind of society that is incapable of exercising real discretion.

  Henry Steele Commager

  Real, Exercise, Censorship In Books

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• The first condition of progress is the removal of censorship.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Progress, Firsts, Censorship

  George Bernard Shaw (2015). “The Collected Works of George Bernard Shaw: Plays, Novels, Articles, Letters and Essays: Pygmalion, Mrs. Warren’s Profession, Candida, Arms and The Man, Man and Superman, Caesar and Cleopatra, Androcles And The Lion, The New York Times Articles on War, Memories of Oscar Wilde and more”, p.1156, e-artnow

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• Every burned book enlightens the world.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Book, World, Censorship

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• I believe in censorship. I made a fortune out of it.

  Mae West

  Funny, Witty, Women

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• If all printers were determined not to print anything till they were sure it would offend nobody, there would be very little printed.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Printed Books, Printed Word, Offending

  Benjamin Franklin (1945). “Autobiographical writings”

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• To reject the word is to reject the human search.

  Max Lerner

  Censorship In Books, Censoring Books, Purging

  Max Lerner (1959). “The Unfinished Country”

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• The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.

  Oscar Wilde

  Inspirational, Anger, Reading

  The Picture of Dorian Gray ch. 19 (1891)

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• Censorship reflects a society's lack of confidence in itself. It is a hallmark of an authoritarian regime.

  Potter Stewart

  Freedom Of Speech, Society, Censorship In Books

  "United States v. Ginzburg, 383 U.S. 463". Dissenting opinion, 1965.

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• All censorships exist to prevent anyone from challenging current conceptions and existing institutions.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Challenges, Progress, Censorship

  George Bernard Shaw (2015). “The Collected Works of George Bernard Shaw: Plays, Novels, Articles, Letters and Essays: Pygmalion, Mrs. Warren’s Profession, Candida, Arms and The Man, Man and Superman, Caesar and Cleopatra, Androcles And The Lion, The New York Times Articles on War, Memories of Oscar Wilde and more”, p.1156, e-artnow

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• 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 censorship.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Challenges, Progress, Firsts

  George Bernard Shaw (2015). “The Collected Works of George Bernard Shaw: Plays, Novels, Articles, Letters and Essays: Pygmalion, Mrs. Warren’s Profession, Candida, Arms and The Man, Man and Superman, Caesar and Cleopatra, Androcles And The Lion, The New York Times Articles on War, Memories of Oscar Wilde and more”, p.1156, e-artnow

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• Yes, books are dangerous. They should be dangerous - they contain ideas.

  Pete Hautman

  Book, Ideas, Censorship

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• [I]t's not just the books under fire now that worry me. It is the books that will never be written. The books that will never be read. And all due to the fear of censorship. As always, young readers will be the real losers.

  Judy Blume

  Real, Book, Fire

  FaceBook post by Judy Blume from Oct 18, 2013

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