We can never be sure that the opinion we are endeavoring to stifle is a false opinion; and if we were sure, stifling it would be an evil still. – John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, 1859
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
The only valid censorship of ideas is the right of people not to listen. – Tommy Smothers
We have a natural right to make use of our pens as of our tongue, at our peril, risk and hazard. – Voltaire, Dictionnaire Philosophique, 1764
The dirtiest book of all is the expurgated book. – Walt Whitman
Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so, too. – Voltaire
I am thankful for all the complaining I hear about our government because it means we have freedom of speech. – Nancie J. Carmody
Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one. – Abbott Joseph Liebling, “Do You Belong in Journalism?” The New Yorker, May 1960
A free press can be good or bad, but, most certainly, without freedom a press will never be anything but bad. – Albert Camus
To reject the word is to reject the human search. – Max Lerner, 1953, on book purging
Nature knows no indecencies; man invents them. – Mark Twain, Notebook, 1935
What progress we are making. In the Middle Ages they would have burned me. Now they are content with burning my books. – Sigmund Freud, 1933
That was but a prelude; where they burn books, they will ultimately burn people as well. – Heinrich Heine, Almansor, 1821 (“Das war ein Vorspiel nur, dort wo man Bücher v
Every burned book enlightens the world. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
The paper burns, but the words fly away. – Akiba ben Joseph
Did you ever hear anyone say, “That work had better be banned because I might read it and it might be very damaging to me?” – Joseph Henry Jackson
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
Assassination is the extreme form of censorship. – George Bernard Shaw, "The Rejected Statement, Part I," The Shewing-Up of
I believe in censorship. I made a fortune out of it. – Mae West
Censorship feeds the dirty mind more than the four-letter word itself. – Dick Cavett
