"CONGRESS SHALL MAKE NO LAW RESPECTING AN ESTABLISHMENT OF RELIGION, OR PROHIBITING THE FREE EXERCISE THEREOF; OR ABRIDGING THE FREEDOM OF SPEECH, OR OF THE PRESS; OR THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE PEACEABLY TO ASSEMBLE, AND TO PETITION THE GOVERNMENT FOR A REDRESS OF GRIEVANCES."
~ First Amendment of the Bill of Rights to the United States Constitution
Censorship: Breakfast Of Tyrants

"Censorship exists to protect corruption." ~ S. Kassem

"Assassination is the extreme form of censorship." ~ George Bernard Shaw

"Censorship is a hallmark of an authoritarian regime." ~ Potter Stewart

"Censorship: it allows you not to think for yourself." ~ Anthony T. Hincks

"TRUTH. It's the new hate speech." ~ anon

"Bad ideas thrive in the dark. Shine a light. Oppose censorship." ~ anon

"One thing that success has taught me is censorship." ~ Tracey Emin

"Free speech is unrestricted speech." ~ anon

"Every burned book enlightened the world." ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

"We change people through conversation, not through censorship." ~ JayZ

"Any book worth banning is a book worth reading." ~ Isaac Asimov

"He who destroys a good book kills reason itself." ~ John Milton

"Without censorship, things can get terribly confused in the public mind." ~ William Westmoreland

"There is a fine line between censorship and good taste and moral responsibility." ~ Steven Spielberg

"Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech." ~ Benjamin Franklin

"If the freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter." ~ George Washington

"When truth is replaced by silence, the silence is a lie." ~ Yevgeny Yevtushenko

"Almost all human beings have an infinite capacity for taking things for granted." ~ Aldous Huxley, author of Brave New World

"What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist." ~ Salman Rushdie

"Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so, too." ~ Voltaire

"Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it." ~ Mark Twain

"If you can't say "Fuck" you can't say, "Fuck the government." ~ Lenny Bruce

"Censorship, in my opinion, is a stupid and shallow way of approaching the solution to any problem." ~ Dwight D. Eisenhower April 4, 1950

"To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize." ~ Voltaire

"The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history." ~ George Orwell

"Censorship is the tool of those who have the need to hide actualities from themselves and from others." ~ Charles Bukowski

"Self-censorship is insulting to the self. Timidity is a hopeless way forward." ~ Ai Weiwei

"The only valid censorship of idea is the right of people not to listen." ~ Tom Smothers

"When silence is a choice, it is an unnerving presence. When silence is imposed, it is censorship." ~ Terry Tempest Williams

"Books and ideas are the most effective weapons against intolerance and ignorance." ~ Lyndon Baines Johnson

"Censorship is the child of fear and the father of ignorance." ~ Laurie Halse Anderson

"During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act." ~ George Orwell

"Words can be deleted, but the facts won't be deleted with them." ~ Ai Weiwei

"I hate it that Americans are taught to fear some books and some ideas as though they were diseases." ~ Kurt Vonnegut

"In a free society the biggest danger is that you’re afraid to the point where you censor yourself." ~ Tim Robbins

"Censorship that comes from the outside assumes about people an inability to make reasoned choices." ~ George Carlin

"The first condition of progress is the removal of censorship." ~ George Bernard Shaw

"I'm not going to censor myself to comfort your ignorance." ~ John Stewart

"There is nothing more dangerous for a population than self-censorship by fear." ~ Kenza Fourth

"Just because you're offended doesn’t mean you're right." ~ Ricky Gervais

"Until they become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious." ~ George Orwell 1984

"Political correctness is neither political nor is it correct. It amount to social censorship, and th sooner we spit it out, the better." ~ Jeff Cooper

"Withholding information is the essence of tyranny. Control of the flow of information is the tool of the dictatorship." ~ Bruce Coville

"The real heroes are the librarians and teachers who at no small risk to themselves refuse to lie down and play dead for censors." ~ Bruce Coville

"If people aren't allowed to say what's really on their minds for fear of upsetting people, we'll end up never saying anything at all." ~ Juno Dawson

"If there had been censorship of the press in Rome we should have had today neither Horace nor Juvenal, nor the philosophical writings of Cicero." ~ Voltaire

"That is just the way with one people. They get down on a thing when they don't know nothing about it." ~ Mark Twain: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

"Without Freedom of Thought, there can be no such Thing as Wisdom; and no such Thing as publick Liberty, without Freedom of Speech." ~ Benjamin Franklin

"Free societies...are societies in motion, and with motion comes tension, dissent, friction. Free people strike sparks, and those sparks are the best evidence of freedom's existence." ~ Salman Rushdie

"When you tear out a man's tongue, you are not proving him a liar, you're only telling the world that you fear what he might say." ~ George R.R. Martin, A Clash of Kings

"Censorship, I believe, is the most dangerous enemy to all human communication, and piety of intentions is probably the most dangerous, the most virulent and the most self-satisfying." ~ Chuck Jones

"The burning of an author's books, imprisonment for an opinion's sake, has always been the tribute that an ignorant age pays to the genius of its time." ~ Joseph Lewis

"Self-censorship, whether known or unknown, is an unwelcome brake on creativity; it stifles self-expression and hence prevents a work fro reaching the heights of great art." ~ Semir Zeki

"The case against censoring anything is absolute… nothing that could be censored can be so bad in its effects, in the long run, s censorship itself." ~ Katharine Whitehorn

"Censorship is always cause for celebration. It is always an opportunity because it reveal fear of reform. It means that the power position is so weak that you have got to care what people think." ~ Julian Assange

"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." ~ Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas

"Don't join the book burners. Don't think you're going to conceal faults by concealing evidence that they ever existed. Don't be afraid to go in your library and read every book..." ~ Dwight D. Eisenhower

"Everyone is in favor of free speech. Hardly a day passes without its being extolled, but some people's idea of it is that they are free to say what they like, but if anyone else says anything back, that is an outrage." ~ Winston Churchill

"We live in oppressive times. We have, as a nation, become our own thought police; but instead of calling the process by which we limit our expression of dissent and wonder "censorship," we call it 'concern for commercial viability'." ~ David Mamet

"The crime of book purging is that it involves a rejection of the word. For the word is never absolute truth, but only man's frail and human effort to approach the truth. To reject the word is to reject the human search. " ~ Max Lerner

"Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear." ~ Harry S. Truman [Special Message to the Congress on the Internal Security of the United States, August 8, 1950]

"Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers." ~ United Nations, Universal Declaration of Human Rights

"If this nation is to be wise as well as strong, if we are to achieve our destiny, then we need more new ideas for more wise men reading more good books in more public libraries. These libraries should be open to all - except the censor. We must know all the facts and hear all the alternatives and listen to all the criticisms. Let us welcome controversial books and controversial authors. For the Bill of Rights is the guardian of our security as well as our liberty" ~ John F. Kennedy [Response to questionnaire in Saturday Review, October 29 1960]

"Censorship is a term pertaining only to governmental action. No private action is censorship. No private individual or agency can silence a man or suppress a publication; only the government can do so. The freedom of speech of private individuals includes the right not to agree, not to listen and not to finance one's own antagonists." ~ Ayn Rand

"Let us be clear: censorship is cowardice...It masks corruption. It is a school of torture; it teaches, and accustoms one to the use of force against an idea, to submit thought to an alien "other". But worst still, censorship destroys criticism, which is the essential ingredient of culture." ~ Pablo Antonio Cuadra

"It's now very common to hear people say, 'I'm rather offended by that.' As if that gives them certain rights. It's actually nothing more... than a whine. 'I find that offensive.' It has no meaning; it has no purpose; it has no reason to be respected as a phrase. 'I am offended by that.' Well, so fucking what." ~ Stephen Fry [The Guardian, 5 June 2005]

"All censorships exists to prevent anyone from challenging current conceptions and existing institutions. All progress is initiated by changing current conceptions, and executed by supplanting existing institutions. Consequently, the first condition of progress is the removal of censorship." ~ George Bernard Shaw

"Political writing in our time consists almost entirely of prefabricated phrases bolted together like the pieces of a child's Meccaano set. It is the unavoidable result of self-censorship. To write in plain, vigorous language one has to think fearlessly, and if one thinks fearlessly one cannot be politically orthodox." ~ George Orwell

"Censorship reflects a society's lack of confidence in itself. It is a hallmark of an authoritarian regime . . . ." ~ Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, dissenting Ginzberg v. United States, 383 U.S. 463 (1966)

"The very purpose of a Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities and officials and to establish them as legal principles to be applied by the courts. One’s right to life, liberty, and property, to free speech, a free press, freedom of worship and assembly, and other fundamental rights may not be submitted to vote; they depend on the outcome of no elections." ~ Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624 (1943)

"First Amendment freedoms are most in danger when the government seeks to control thought or to justify its laws for that impermissible end. The right to think is the beginning of freedom, and speech must be protected from the government because speech is the beginning of thought." ~ Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, Ashcroft V. Free Speech Coalition

"Men feared witches and burnt women. It is the function of speech to free men from the bondage of irrational fears." ~ U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis (1856-1941), Whitney v. California, 274 U. S. 357 (1927)

The Great Law of Peace & The U.S. Constitution
The Pluto Return: 1776 to 2024

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