No Censor Quotes

#1. It is our attitude toward free thought and free expression that will determine our fate. There must be no limit on the range of temperate discussion, no limits on thought. No subject must be taboo. No censor must preside at our assemblies.

William O. Douglas

#2. 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.

D.H. Lawrence

#3. When one does a thing, it appears good, otherwise one would not write it. Only later comes reflection, and one discards or accepts the thing. Time is the best censor, and patience a most excellent teacher.

Frederic Chopin

#4. No one can do a thing about feelings, they exist and there's no way to censor them. We can reproach ourselves for some action, for a remark, but not for a feeling, quite simply because we have no control at all over it.

Milan Kundera

#5. I suppose being the kind of creatures we [people] are, we like to censor the past, and are selective, or want to be selective about the things that we remember. If you want to destroy people, destroy their memory, destroy their history.

Desmond Tutu

#6. Self-censorship is a lie to yourself; if you are going to be trying to seriously create art, to create literary art, and you decide to hold back, to censor yourself, then you are a fool to yourself and it would be better that you kept your mouth shut and did not speak.

Salman Rushdie

#7. As the voices fall silent, the individuals who make up the amorphous and always changing community must decide for themselves, as they always have. I can't write a coda because I can't speak for others. I can only and ever speak for myself.

G.R. Reader

#8. Books can be burned," croaked Black.
"They have a way of rising from the ashes," said Andreus.

James Thurber

#9. When you're in love, you're so happy that you want to tell people about it. But now I have to censor myself. You need to protect the happiness you have.

Emily Blunt

#10. A performance art piece is unprecedented. It is difficult to censor since it has a good possibility of never being done before.

Jack Bowman

#11. Censors never go after books unless kids already like them. I don't even think they know to go after books until they know that children are interested in reading this book, therefore there must be something in it that's wrong.

Judy Blume

#12. It would be nice to think that a censor could allow a genuine work of artistic seriousness and ban a titillating piece of sadism, but it would take a miracle to make such a distinction stick.

Katharine Whitehorn

#13. In Italy the censor is very old and there are many judges and psychiatrists who analyse you.

Dario Argento

#14. 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

#15. Censor, n. An officer of certain governments, employed to supress the works of genius. Among the Romans the censor was an inspector of public morals, but the public morals of modern nations will not bear inspection.

Ambrose Bierce

#16. I sort of have to self-censor sometimes.

Judah Friedlander

#17. Literature should not be suppressed merely because it offends the moral code of the censor.

William O. Douglas

#18. Censor the body and you censor breath and speech at the same time. Write yourself. Your body must be heard.

Helene Cixous

#19. Countries that censor news and information must recognize that from an economic standpoint, there is no distinction between censoring political speech and commercial speech. If businesses in your nations are denied access to either type of information, it will inevitably impact on growth.

Hillary Clinton

#20. Make no mistake- you can change things. Question everything, take nothing for granted; argue with all received ideas, don't respect what does not deserve respect; speak your mind, don't censor yourself; use your imagination and express what it tells you to express. These are the weapons of the mind.

Salman Rushdie

#21. Fitz did not censor her mail but, as the head of the family, he had the right to read any letter addressed to a female relative living in his house. No respectable woman would object.

Ken Follett

#22. When a critic sets himself up as an arbiter of morality, a judge of the matter and not the manner of a work, he is no longer a critic; he is a censor.

Edward Albee

#23. Censors are dead men set up to judge between life and death. For no live, sunny man would be a censor, he'd just laugh.

D.H. Lawrence

#24. You can control and censor a child's reading, but you can't control her interpretations; no one can guess how a message that to adults seems banal or ridiculous or outmoded will alter itself and evolve inside the darkness of a child's heart.

Hilary Mantel

#25. Today, retired but not defeated, I enjoy the sacred privilege of writing at home, with the phone off the hook so that no one can disturb me, and without a censor looking over my shoulder to see what I am writing.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez

#26. Nick chided a censor, who wished some books gone, and suggested she scan Fahrenheit 451. For the book-budget cutters, Old Claus had no plan, cause if they could read, they just read Ayn Rand.

David Davis

#27. It was important that I learn that what I wanted was no different from what other artists wanted: confidence that I could be my own censor, audience, and competition.

Beverly Pepper

#28. Mostly I have to try to censor myself so as not to write things that will hurt other people, or that will go too far.

Jonathan Ames

#29. Peer review was an excellent system by which academics could either anonymously censor others with whom they disagreed, or hide from controversy after they signed off on truth that the public couldn't stomach.

B.C. Chase

#30. The Superego, in censoring the unconscious and in implanting conscience, also censors the censor.

Herbert Marcuse

#31. I find it very offensive when the government tells me what I can and cannot watch. Censor yourself.

Michael Badnarik

#32. Censorship makes me really angry. I even hate it when people censor themselves.

Emma Stone

#33. Now, with the message sent, the words said, she wanted to call them back, to censor, to rearrange them, to make a prettier sentence, a fairer explanation of her soul.

Ray Bradbury

#34. We come into this world crying and calling, wailing and singing; and for the first months of our life all our needs and instincts, our dissatisfactions and discoveries are immediately vocalized without apology and without censor.

Paul Newham

#35. We shouldn't censor ourselves based on the weak idea of "looking cool." It's such a waste of potential awesomeness.

Neko Case

#36. The question isn't whether or not to censor artists who espouse misogynistic views. The question is whether or not we support them as listeners and consumers.

Dessa Darling

#37. I have a lot of Chinese fans who buy my movies on the street and watch them, and I'm OK with it. I'm not OK with it in other places, but if the government's going to censor me, then I want the people to see it in any way they can.

Quentin Tarantino

#38. A lot of times, we censor ourselves before the censor even gets there.

Spike Lee

#39. I never make moral judgments; I'm not qualified to do so. I am not a censor, a priest, or a politician.

Federico Fellini

#40. To be clear, Goodreads staff have not been deleting any posts. A value we've always had here is that we don't censor content (unless it's against our policies - eg porn, etc). [April 1, 2013]

Otis Y. Chandler

#41. It's easy to delete the truth when you live behind your own permanent censor.

Katie Kacvinsky

#42. Words alone can rarely justify censorship. If we censor words themselves without looking at the context, we could shut down much of the entertainment industry.

Witold Walczak

#43. An actor cannot be a censor. I'm there to interpret.

Malcolm McDowell

#44. When human beings are scared and feel everything is exposed to the government, we will censor ourselves from free thinking. That's dangerous for human development.

Ai Weiwei

#45. I'm not going to censor myself to comfort your ignorance

Jon Stewart

#46. I love my country, but I believe that we are too quick to censor nudity.

Eva Mendes

#47. Pontius Pilate was the first great censor and Jesus Christ the first great victim of censorship.

Ben Lindsey

#48. Again, like I said, we're not trying to censor anyone. If you think drugs are cool, fine. Make that movie. We are not going to stop you, or try to stop you, but we would encourage other people to be a bit more responsible about their portrayal of drug usage.

Gerald McRaney

#49. I think the enemy is self-censorship. In a free society the biggest danger is that you're afraid to the point where you censor yourself.

Tim Robbins

#50. Once you get used to censorship, sometimes you self-censor.

Lucien Bourjeily

#51. We fear storms and wild beasts, but we do not censor them. If we must guard ourselves from evil influences we thereby admit their seductive appeal.

Philip Slater

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

Thomas Jefferson

#53. There are Anarchists in other parts of the world who are unable to, comprehend the position of the Spanish Anarchists. I do not pretend to censor these Anarchists.

Federica Montseny

#54. Don't censor your dreams or vision with practicalities and probabilities.

Jack Canfield