Right now I think censorship is necessary; the things they're doing and saying in films right now just shouldn't be allowed. There's no dignity anymore and I think that's very important.
Brown, Rita Mae

The notion of political correctness, declares certain topics, certain expressions, even certain gestures off-limits. What began as a crusade for civility has soured into a cause of conflict and even censorship
Bush, President George Herbert Walker

I admire a country which welcomes people to express their opinion. I'm proud of Great Britain's tradition of free speech.
Bush, President George W

The majority of us are for free speech only when it deals with those subjects concerning which we have no intense convictions.
Chafee, Edmund B

If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all
Chomsky, Noam

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

Censors tend to do what only psychotics do: they confuse reality with illusion.
Cronenberg, David

Every burned book enlightens the world.
Emerson, Ralph Waldo

Censorship is never over for those who have experienced it. It is a brand on the imagination that affects the individual who has suffered it, forever
Gordimer, Nadine

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 weapon against bad ideas is better ideas.
Griswold, Alfred Whitney

When any government...undertakes to say to its subjects, 'This you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know,' the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how holy the motives. Mighty little force is needed to control a man whose mind has been hoodwinked; contrariwise, no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything - you can't conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him
Heinlein, Robert Anson

The very aim and end of our institutions is just this: that we may think what we like and say what we think
Holmes, Jr, Oliver Wendell

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'?
Jackson, Joseph Henry

The paper burns, but the words fly away.
Joseph, Akiba ben

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.
Kennedy, John Fitzgerald

Let us welcome controversial books and controversial authors.
Kennedy, John Fitzgerald

All authority of any kind, especially in the field of thought and understanding, is the most destructive, evil thing.
Krishnamurti, Jiddu

Freedom of the press is limited to those who own one.
Liebling, Abbott Joseph

No one has the right to choose what is wrong
Lincoln, President Abraham

Censorship, like charity, should begin at home, but unlike charity, it should end there
Luce, Clare Boothe

It is useless to close the gates against ideas; they overlap them.
Metternich, Prince Klemens Wenzel Nepomuk Lothar von

If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.
Mill, John Stuart

When they took the 4th Amendment, I was quiet because I didn't deal drugs. When they took the 6th Amendment, I was quiet because I am innocent. When they took the 2nd Amendment, I was quiet because I don't own a gun. Now they have taken the 1st Amendment, and I can only be quiet.
Myhur, Lyle

Free speech is the whole thing, the whole ball game. Free speech is life itself.
Rushdie, Salman

Assassination is the extreme form of censorship.
Shaw, George Bernard