Censorship Quotes

"To suppress free speech is a double wrong. It violates the rights of the hearer as well as those of the speaker." — Frederick Douglass

“Don't join the book burners. Don't think you're going to conceal faults by concealing evidence that they ever existed.” ― Dwight D. Eisenhower


  ― Martin Luther King Jr.

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”

“There comes a time when silence is betrayal.”

“Free at last, Free at last, Thank God almighty we are free at last.”

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. ”


   “What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist.” ― Salman Rushdie

“We have, as far as possible, closed every avenue by which light may enter their [the slaves'] minds. If we could extinguish the capacity to see the light, our work would be complete; they would then be on a level with the beasts of the field and we should be safe.” ― Henry Berry, speaking in the Virginia House of Delegates in 1832


   “Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear.” ― Harry S. Truman

"Silence is the deadliest weapon of mass destruction." ~ Cynthia Mckinney



  "Knowledge makes a man unfit to be a slave."  — Frederick Douglass


I SAY TO OUR IRANIAN FRIENDS: Let your people march, let your people speak, release your people from jail, let them have a voice! ― Vice President Joe Biden


   “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, Mrs. Warren's Profession

“You have not converted a man because you have silenced him.” ― John Lothrop Motley

If you take a slave, if you teach him all about your language, he will know all your secrets, and he is then no more a slave, for you can’t fool him any longer, and BEING A FOOL IS ONE OF THE BASIC INGREDIENTS OF ANY INCIDENTS TO THE MAINTENANCE OF THE SLAVERY SYSTEM. ― Willie Lynch to Virginia Colony slave owners, 1712

   “If we really saw war, what war does to young minds and bodies, it would be impossible to embrace the myth of war. If we had to stand over the mangled corpses of schoolchildren killed in Afghanistan and listen to the wails of their parents, we would not be able to repeat clichés we use to justify war. This is why war is carefully sanitized. This is why we are given war's perverse and dark thrill but are spared from seeing war's consequences. The mythic visions of war keep it heroic and entertaining… ― Chris Hedges, Death of the Liberal Class


  “I should say here, because some in Washington like to dream up ways to control the Internet, that we don't need to 'control' free speech, we need to control ourselves.” ― Peggy Noonan, Patriotic Grace: What It Is and Why We Need It Now


    For nothing is secret, that shall not be made manifest; neither any thing hid, that shall not be known and come abroad. Luke 8:17

His malice may be concealed by deception, but his wickedness will be exposed in the assembly. Proverbs 26:26

So do not be afraid of them. There is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known. Matthew 10:26

  "If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle."
— Frederick Douglass

"If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place"  ― Eric Schmidt, Google

"History has shown us that repression often sows the seeds for revolution down the road," Clinton will say. "Those who clamp down on Internet freedom may be able to hold back the full impact of their people's yearnings for a while, but not forever." ― Hillary Clinton
http://slatest.slate.com/id/2285167/entry/1/

Freedom of speech and press are neither inalienable nor free. Keeping them requires a constant battle.

God gave man human rights, including freedom of expression; the Constitution merely affirmed them.