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Quotes of the Day for 4 December 2004 - Censorship

There are very few things in life that upset and frighten me, but right at the top of the list is censorship. No, this does not come up today because of any specific vile occurrence in history, but rather the fact that quite a few of you were not allowed to read yesterday's Quotes of the Day. That issue featured a set of quotes from the author Joseph Conrad, and in the introduction I mentioned the titles of three of his best-known works, one of which included a word that some mail administrators apparently don't like. In response, I chose these quotes on censors and censorship, and brought the archives up-to-date so that you could read the gems from Conrad in your web browser: www.qotd.org/archive/2004/12/03.html

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.
     - Alfred Whitney Griswold, 1906 - 1963

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.
     - Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1890 - 1969

Our civilisation cannot afford to let the censor-moron loose. The censor-moron does not really hate anything but the living and growing human consciousness.
     - David Herbert Lawrence, 1885 - 1930

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 Fitzgerald Kennedy, 1917 - 1963

The censorship method ... is that of handing the job over to some frail and erring mortal man, and making him omnipotent on the assumption that his official status will make him infallible and omniscient.
     - George Bernard Shaw, 1856 - 1950

We are willing enough to praise freedom when she is safely tucked away in the past and cannot be a nuisance. In the present, amidst dangers whose outcome we cannot foresee, we get nervous about her, and admit censorship.
     - Edward Morgan Forster, 1879 - 1970

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