Quote of the day - Censorship

[diandrahollman]

Guh. I'm looking at all sorts of lists of books that have been challenged by groups like The Committee of Parental Prudes With Nothing Better To Do Than Scour Books for Words Like "Damn" and I'm getting punchy. And stories about Sarah Palin threatening to fire a librarian for refusing to censor books (um, hi, that goes against everything a librarian stands for) aren't helping. Ergo, this week's theme is Censorship and Why It's a Bad Thing.

"[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." ~Judy Blume

" If your library is not 'unsafe', it probably isn't doing its job." ~John Berry

"There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them. " ~Joseph Alexandrovitch Brodsky

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

"The fact is that censorship always defeats its own purpose, for it creates, in the end, the kind of society that is incapable of exercising real discretion..." ~Henry Steel Commager

"If the human body's obscene, complain to the manufacturer, not me." ~Larry Flynt (I promise that is the last quote you will see from Larry Flynt in this journal)

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

"Obviously, the danger is not in the actual act of reading itself, but rather, the possibility that the texts children read will incite questions, introduce novel ideas, and provoke critical inquiry." ~Persis M. Karim

"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

"The sooner we all learn to make a decision between disapproval and censorship, the better off society will be... Censorship cannot get at the real evil, and it is an evil in itself." ~Granville Hicks

"Nature knows no indecencies; man invents them." ~Mark Twain

"We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people." ~John F. Kennedy

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." ~A scholar of Voltaire, summarizing his ideas

"One cannot and must not try to erase the past merely because it does not fit the present." ~Golda Meir

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

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

"Censorship reflects a society's lack of confidence in itself. It is the hallmark of an authoritarian regime..." ~Justice Potter Stewart

"I suppose that writers should, in a way, feel flattered by the censorship laws. They show a primitive fear and dread at the fearful magic of print."  ~John Mortimer