censorship quotes

There are websites that any government wants to block. The truth about the Internet is that it’s extremely hard to block anything – extremely hard. You’ll never get perfect blocking.

I’ve only written one science-fiction book: ‚Fahrenheit 451.‘ That book is a book based on real facts and my hatred of people who destroy books.

Every burned book enlightens the world.

The government of Israel doesn’t like the kinds of things I say, which puts them into the same category as every other government in the world.

‚Fahrenheit 451‘ postulates a lot of things I didn’t want to have happen.

In matters of truth the fact that you don’t want to publish something is, nine times out of ten, a proof that you ought to publish it.

I am mortified to be told that, in the United States of America, the sale of a book can become a subject of inquiry, and of criminal inquiry too.

The first condition of progress is the removal of censorship.

Obscenity comes from grime.

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

No government ought to be without censors; and where the press is free no one ever will.

What is ominous is the ease with which some people go from saying that they don’t like something to saying that the government should forbid it. When you go down that road, don’t expect freedom to survive very long.

Assassination is the extreme form of censorship.

Difference of opinion is advantageous in religion. The several sects perform the office of a Censor – over each other.

A state of society where men may not speak their minds cannot long endure.

The press is the enemy.

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

They say you can rap about anything except for Jesus, that means guns, sex, lies, video tapes, but if I talk about God my record won’t get played Huh?

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

Censorship is the tool of those who have the need to hide actualities from themselves and from others. Their fear is only their inability to face what is real, and I can’t vent any anger against them; I only feel this appalling sadness. Somewhere in their upbringing, they were shielded against the total facts of our existence.

When even one American – who has done nothing wrong – is forced by fear to shut his mind and close his mouth – then all Americans are in peril.

It may be that the most striking thing about members of my literary generation in retrospect will be that we were allowed to say absolutely anything without fear of punishment.

Who is more to be pitied, a writer bound and gagged by policemen or one living in perfect freedom who has nothing more to say?

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.

The trouble with censors is that they worry if a girl has cleavage. They ought to worry if she hasn’t any.

Children say that people are hung sometimes for speaking the truth.

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

A free press can, of course, be good or bad, but, most certainly without freedom, the press will never be anything but bad.