Banned Quotes

• At one point consciousness-altering devices like the microscope and telescope were criminalized for exactly the same reasons that psychedelic plants were banned in later years. They allow us to peer into bits and zones of Chaos.

  Timothy Leary

  Years, Vision, Peers

  Timothy Leary (1994). “Das GeneRationen-Spiel & wie die HeimMedien die kulturelle Evolution designen”

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• Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so, too.

  Voltaire

  Inspirational, Thinking Of You, Knowledge

  Voltaire (1762). “Works”, p.114

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• God forbid that any book should be banned. The practice is as indefensible as infanticide.

  Rebecca West

  Funny, Sarcastic, Women

  The Strange Necessity (1928) "The Tosh Horse"

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• You can take a substance that works in your system, but then you take this over here that's not banned, and this over here that's not banned, but if you mix them together, you've got a banned substance in your system.

  Lawrence Taylor

  Sports, Together, Substance

  "Lawrence Taylor: Getting Blitzed". Interview with Jon Robinson, www.ign.com. May 31, 2005.

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• First of all, a player has to know what is banned and what is not banned.

  Lawrence Taylor

  Sports, Player, Firsts

  "Lawrence Taylor: Getting Blitzed" by Jon Robinson, www.ign.com. May 31, 2005.

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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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• You know I've had work banned.

  Kathy Acker

  Corny, Knows

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• 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

  Wisdom, Censorship In Books, Might

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• Our main agenda is to have all guns banned of course. We must use whatever means possible. It doesn't matter if you have to distort facts or even lie. Our task of creating a socialist America can only succeed when those who would resist us have been totally disarmed.

  Sarah Brady

  Lying, Mean, Gun

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• Our situation today shows that beauty demands for itself at least as much courage and decision as do truth and goodness, and she will not allow herself to be separated and banned from her two sisters without taking them along with herself in an act of mysterious vengeance.

  Hans Urs von Balthasar

  Two, Decision, Demand

  Hans Urs von Balthasar (1982). “Glory of the Lord VOL 1: Seeing The Form”, p.18, A&C Black

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• Torture is banned but in two-thirds of the world's countries it is still being committed in secret. Too many governments still allow wrongful imprisonment, murder or "disappearance" to be carried out by their officials with impunity.

  Peter Benenson

  Country, Government, Two

  The Amnesty International Annual Report (p. 22), 2002.

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• I did write a letter to the archdiocese who'd banned the song, Only the Good Die Young, asking them to ban my next record.

  Billy Joel

  Song, Writing, Asking

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• I hate that word 'hate' - it should be banned.

  Nicole Appleton

  Hate, I Hate, Should

  Interview with Rosanna Greenstreet, www.theguardian.com. November 18, 2006.

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• Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it.

  Mark Twain

  Funny, Witty, Baby

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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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• In addition, we were unable to meet openly to discuss the progress of the book, for we were both on the list of persons banned from communicating with other banned persons.

  Ruth First

  Book, Progress, Lists

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• Many other countries have already banned human cloning, and there are efforts at the UN to make such a ban universal.

  Leon Kass

  Country, Effort, Cloning

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• The base emotions Plato banned have left a radio-active and not radiant land.

  Libby Houston

  Plato, Land, Radio

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• People keep coming up to me and asking, 'How does it feel to be banned for life?' Banned for life. I wasn't banned for life. There was never a word of suspension, probation or ban in that agreement. It was never meant to be part of it.

  George Steinbrenner

  Agreement, People, Doe

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• If I could believe the Quakers banned music because church music is so damn bad, I should view them with approval.

  Ezra Pound

  Believe, Views, Church Music

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• It's very worrying at this time in the world that any point of view should be prohibited, that's banned, there are heretics that should be burned at the stake.

  Thabo Mbeki

  Views, Worry, World

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• There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them.

  Joseph Brodsky

  Education, Reading, Book

  "The Balancing Act: Mastering the Competing Demands of Leadership". Book by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Al Switzler and Ron McMillan, 1996.

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• Books won't stay banned. They won't burn. Ideas won't go to jail.

  Alfred Whitney Griswold

  Book, Ideas, Jail

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

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• I would love mainland Chinese to read my book. There is a Chinese translation which I worked on myself, published in Hong Kong and Taiwan. Many copies have gone into China but it is still banned.

  Jung Chang

  Book, Chinese, Taiwan

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• When I introduced a black soldier, Lt. Flap, in 1971, the Stars and Stripes banned the strip. They were having racial problems and thought it would increase the tensions.

  Mort Walker

  Stars, Soldier, Black

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