Censorship
Quotes on Censorship
Art made tongue-tied by authority.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist, poet
Those expressions are omitted which cannot with propriety be read aloud in the family.
Dr. Thomas Bowdler (1754-1825) English editor, expurgator
Fear of corrupting the mind of the younger generation is the loftiest form of cowardice.
Holbrook Jackson (1874-1948) British writer
I know of no book which has been a source of brutality and sadistic conduct, both public and private, that can compare with the Bible.
Lord Paget (b. 1908) British Labour politician
Who kills a man kills a reasonable creature, God’s image; but he who destroys a good book, kills reason itself, kills the image of God, as it were in the eye.
John Milton (1608-1674 English poet
Censorship is like an appendix. When inert, it is useless; when active it is extremely dangerous.
Maurice Edelman (1911-1975) British Labour politician
Censorship is the commonest social blasphemy because it is mostly concealed, built into us by indolence, self-interest, and cowardice.
John Osborne (b. 1929) British playwright
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 (1894-1955) American critic, travel-writer
Every burned book enlightens the world.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist, poet, philosopher
If we can’t stamp out literature in the country, we can at least stop it being brought in from outside.
Evelyn Waugh (19034966) British novelist
They who have put out the people’s eyes reproach them of their blindness.
John Milton (1608-1674) English poet
The artist and the censor differ in this wise: that the first is a decent mind in an indecent body and that the second is an in-decent mind in a decent body.
George Jean Nathan (1882-1958) American critic
He who discommendeth others obliquely commendeth himself.
Sir Thomas Browne (1605-1682) English doctor, author
They can’t censor the gleam in my eye.
Charles Laughton (1899-1962)
I believe in censorship. After all, I made a fortune out of it
Mae West (1892-1980) American
