Censorship Quotes - Page 22

• The Library is an open sanctuary. It is devoted to individual intellectual inquiry and contemplation. Its function is to provide free access to ideas and information. It is a haven of privacy, a source of both cultural and intellectual sustenance for the individual reader. Since it is thus committed to free and open inquiry on a personal basis, the Library must remain open, with access to it always guaranteed.

  Robert G. Vosper

  Ideas, Intellectual, Library

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• 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

  Love, Moving, Book

  Robertson Davies (1949). “The Table Talk of Samuel Marchbanks”, Clarke, Irwin

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• What censorship accomplishes, creating an unreal and hypocritical mythology, fomenting an attraction for forbidden fruit, inhibiting the creative minds among us and fostering an illicit trade. Above all, it curtails the right of the individual, be he creator or consumer, to satisfy his intellect and his interest without harm. In our law-rooted society, we are not the keeper of our brother's morals - only of his rights.

  Judith Crist

  Brother, Creating, Rights

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• It may be said that artist and censor differ in this wise: that the first is a decent mind in an indecent body and that the second is an indecent mind in a decent body.

  George Jean Nathan

  Wise, Artist, Mind

  George Jean Nathan (1925). “The American Mercury”

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• We can speak our honest minds without compromise and without censorship and to each other and to our people. We can take our message directly to our people.

  Glenn Miller

  People, Mind, Messages

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• The Right of all members of society to form their own beliefs and communicate them freely to others must be regarded as an essential principle of a democratically organized society.

  Thomas I. Emerson

  Religion, Democracy, Principles

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• An attack upon our ability to tell stories is not just censorship - it is a crime against our nature as human beings.

  Salman Rushdie

  Stories, Crime, Ability

  "Salman Rushdie Discusses The Role Of The Novel In The Era Of 24-Hour News In Talk At CU-Boulder" by Joe Rubino, www.huffingtonpost.com. April 18, 2013.

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• For books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a potency of life in them to be as active as that soul was whose progeny they are; nay, they do preserve as in a vial the purest efficacy and extraction of that living intellect that bred them.

  John Milton

  Life, Book, Soul

  'Areopagitica' (1644) p. 4

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• We are in an era where censorship is creeping back in through the Patriot Act and where people are.. being intimidated not to speak about what we should be speaking about.

  Gerald Nicosia

  People, Eras, Patriot

  "50 years later, 'Howl' still resonates". www.today.com. October 6, 2005.

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• If [domain seizure] isn't direct censorship, I don't know what is.

  Dan Gillmor

  Domain, Knows, Direct

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• If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place.

  Eric Schmidt

  Google, Want, Firsts

  "Google CEO On Privacy". www.huffingtonpost.com. March 18, 2010.

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• I'm glad I'm not Brezhnev. Being the Russian leader in the Kremlin. You never know if someone's tape recording what you say.

  Richard M. Nixon

  Wisdom, Leader, Tape

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• ...heroine: the artist, the premier mistress writhering in a garden graced w/highly polished blades of grass... release (ethiopium) is the drug...an animal howl says it all...notes pour into the caste of freedom...the freedom to be intense...to defy social order and break the slow kill monotony of censorship. to break from the long bonds of servitude-ruthless adoration of the celestial shepherd. let us celebrate our own flesh-to embrace not ones race mais the marathon-to never let go of the fiery sadness called desire.

  Patti Smith

  Letting Go, Sadness, Garden

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• Censorship is saying: "I'm the one who says the last sentence. Whatever you say, the conclusion is mine." But the internet is like a tree that is growing. The people will always have the last word – even if someone has a very weak, quiet voice. Such power will collapse because of a whisper.

  Ai Weiwei

  Quiet Voice, People, Tree

  "China's censorship can never defeat the internet" by Ai Weiwei, www.theguardian.com. April 15, 2012.

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• Free at last, Free at last, Thank God almighty we are free at last.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Inspirational, Life, God

  Speech at Civil Rights March,Washington, D.C., 28 Aug. 1963

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• They [intellectuals] coined most of the slogans that guided the butcheries of Bolshevism, Fascism, and Nazism. Intellectuals extolling the delights of murder, writers advocating censorship, philosophers judging the merits of thinkers and authors, not according to the value of their contributions but according to their achievements on battlefields, are the spiritual leaders of our age of perpetual strife.

  Ludwig von Mises

  Spiritual, Judging, Leader

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• Self-censorship is insulting to the self. Timidity is a hopeless way forward.

  Ai Weiwei

  Self, Way Forward, Insulting

  "Truth to Power". Interview with Simon Kirby, Index on Censorship, www.indexoncensorship.org. May 2008.

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• Nothing could be more stupid than for the communications commission to give to people who handle the means of broadcasting the inventing of what to broadcast, and then, disturbed at the poor quality, to worry about censorship.

  Paul Goodman

  Stupid, Communication, Mean

  Paul Goodman (2011). “Growing Up Absurd: Problems of Youth in the Organized Society”, p.8, New York Review of Books

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• And although I'm all for freedom of expression and against censorship, there are certain things I'm not willing to go to jail for.

  Tom Lehrer

  Expression, Jail, Certain

  "The Music Show" with Andrew Ford, www.abc.net.au. July 8, 2006.

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• I have a really good idea of who my readers are and always write with a sensitivity to my audience. I use the F word when necessary, but there are words I won't use, mainly because I don't like them. I don't write about body parts when I write about sex. It's not about the physiological, it's more important for teens to read about the emotional aspects. I do think there are times when self-censorship is important.

  Ellen Hopkins

  Sex, Writing, Emotional

  Source: ncac.org

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• Is it really beyond our wits to devise some form of censorship which would trap only the crudely sadistic?

  Storm Jameson

  Sadistic, Form, Traps

  Storm Jameson (2011). “Parthian Words”, p.70, A&C Black

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• To reject censorship after studying the risks involved is very well. To reject it ex cathedra, in the tones of Calvin pronouncing a dogma, eyes and mind closed to the possible consequences, the even marginally possible, is to make things too comfortable for oneself.

  Storm Jameson

  Eye, Risk, Mind

  Storm Jameson (2011). “Parthian Words”, p.67, A&C Black

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• perhaps these men in the House Caucus Room [Committee on Un-American Activities] are determined to spread silence: to frighten those voices which will shout no, and ask questions, defend the few, attack cruelty and proclaim the rights and dignity of man. ... America is going to look very strange to Americans and they will not be at home here, for the air will slowly become unbreathable to all forms of life except sheep.

  Martha Gellhorn

  Home, Men, Sheep

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• It is impossible for ideas to compete in the marketplace if no forum for their presentation is provided or available.

  Thomas E. Mann

  Communication, Carpe Diem, Ideas

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• Censorship, telling people how to live their lives I completely disagree with.

  M. Shadows

  People, Disagree

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