Browsing Topic Best Censored Quotes

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

The only valid censorship of ideas is the right of people not to listen.

If we let people see that kind of thing, there would never again be any war. Pentagon official, on why US military censored graphic footage from the Gulf War In time of war the first casualty is truth.

All movies in China are censored. Out of 600 movies produced in China, only 60 are allowed to show in theatres.

I think her Grandmother Hall gave her a great sense of family love, and reassurance. Her grandmother did love her, like her father, unconditionally. And despite the order and the discipline – and home at certain hours and out at certain hours and reading at certain hours – there was a surprising amount of freedom. Eleanor Roosevelt talks about how the happiest moments of her days were when she would take a book out of the library, which wasn’t censored.

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

China and the U.S. are two societies with very different attitudes towards opinion and criticism. In China, I am constantly under surveillance. Even my slightest, most innocuous move can – and often is – censored by Chinese authorities.

I’ve been quoting the book [on Peter Sutcliffe] constantly in rehearsals. Some members of the cast have stated their disapproval that it should even have been written. Some of the women have expressed more – disgust and anger. What are they saying? They’d prefer not to know, not to understand? They’d prefer certain areas of life to be censored? Isn’t that partly what breeds the Sutcliffes and the Nilsens?

Part of the power of the Internet is that information flows out there and it’s generally not censored and it’s generally not controlled by any single authority.

All speech should be presumed to be protected by the Constitution, and a heavy burden should be placed on those who would censor to demonstrate with relative certainty that the speech at issue, if not censored, would lead to irremediable and immediate serious harm.

People are gonna think that MTV censored me, and they really didn’t. I really wanted to try to make a show that didn’t rely on offensive, edgy material because I think it was an exercise in trying to write without that. Because I see that as a crutch sometimes and I want to know that I can do something funny and worthwhile without that. And also make a show that my parents would like and that kids could watch with their parents.

My first book, ‘Running Loose’, was censored back in 1983 or ’84. Every book I’ve written since has been censored somewhere.

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

The fear of saying something stupid (which stupid people never have) has censored far more good ideas than bad ones.

Homo-sexuals should not be censored, but neither should those who oppose their point of view. That’s called free speech.

I take pens and I write on the inside of my arm. When I’m with people and somebody says a really fascinating anecdote, or fact, or phrase, I’ll write it on the inside of my arm. At the end of the day, I’ll take the very best things that are on my arm and I’ll copy them into a notebook that I always carry and only when the weather is absolutely terrible will I really key the very best of that notebook into the computer. At that point, it’s all sort of censored twice – only the best things go from the arm to the book and only the best things go from the book to the computer.

Censorship, like charity, should begin at home, but, unlike charity, it should end there.

As it is an ancient truth that freedom cannot be legislated into existence, so it is no less obvious that freedom cannot be censored into existence.

I don’t think that anything anyone has to say should ever be censored or unheard

The thing about stand-up was, I was doing all this sketch and YouTube stuff where I was not being censored and I got to do my own thing, and it was really cool.

But we know that freedom cannot be served by the devices of the tyrant. As it is an ancient truth that freedom cannot be legislated into existence, so it is no less obvious that freedom cannot be censored into existence. And any who act as if freedoms defenses are to be found in suppression and suspicion and fear confess a doctrine that is alien to America.

If in other lands the press and books and literature of all kinds are censored, we must redouble our efforts here to keep them free

See, the ‘On the Road’ that came out in 1957 was censored. A lot of the honesty of it, the bitter honesty, is in the original scroll version that came out in 2007 on the 50-year anniversary. Back then, there was so much post-Second World War fear that was imposed on everybody – ‘You must live life this way’ – and these guys were bored.

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

If the fires of freedom and civil liberties burn low in other lands they must be made brighter in our own. If in other lands the press and books and literature of all kinds are censored we must redouble our efforts here to keep them free. If in other lands the eternal truths of the past are threatened by intolerance we must provide a safe place for their perpetuation.

Don’t join the book burners. Do not think you are going to conceal thoughts by concealing evidence that they ever existed.

I censored myself for 50 years when I was a reporter. Now I wake up and ask myself, ‘Who do I hate today?’

The first condition of progress is the removal of censorship.

While the Internet is censored in China, the censorship is allowing a level of speech to take place that’s unprecedented.

I don’t regret anything I ever do or say. I don’t like to live my life being censored. I like to say what I feel, and I think people respect that because you’re honest.

Censorship ends in logical completeness when nobody is allowed to read any books except the books that nobody can read.

Don’t join the book burners!

The internet is necessarily public. It can be filtered-public or censored-public, but it necessarily has to be open and available.

Large newspapers are routinely censored by legal costs. It is time this stopped. It is time a country said, enough is enough, justice must be seen, history must be preserved, and we will give shelter from the storm.

[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.