Censorship Quotations

Let me be clear: I am not an advocate of censorship.

We get on the bandwagon in all sorts of ways - you know minor ways and major ways - like what you've just encountered which isn't censorship exactly, it was something sort of uglier in a way.

The only valid censorship of ideas is the right of people not to listen.

There's been an incredible censorship in America and throughout the world, but particularly in America where students aren't even allowed to critically think about evolution, the issue of origins; they are not allowed to hear other points of view; they are taught incorrectly about science and taught that evolution is fact.

In China, the rules of the market are not always that transparent. So it's very hard. Also, the national TV networks are all owned by the government, so our shows are subject to censorship by the networks. Every now and then, we are told that certain subjects cannot be talked about. There are frustrations.

The prime goal of censorship is to promote ignorance, whether it is done via lying and bowdlerized school texts or by attacking individual books.

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

I'm not interested in censorship. I like the First Amendment very much.

The ultimate censorship is the flick of the dial.

I always loved music, and I always wanted to make a film about it, but I could never do it because of the censorship that was around.

The territory has changed, and a lot of really good actors want to do cable series, but they don't necessarily want to do network TV and make the commitment of 22 episodes or whatever. They find that the liberties and the creative freedoms that you get in cable is more interesting to them than the censorship of a network show.

Censorship of ideas or images or words is wrong.

What is also strange to me is that public libraries have always been in the forefront of opposing censorship.

The Internet treats censorship as a malfunction and routes around it.

The censor's sword pierces deeply into the heart of free expression.

I think the best thing in cases of censorship or things like this is to get as much media as possible.

If you stand still there is only one way to go, and that's backwards.

I am still against any kind of censorship. It's a subject in my life that has been very important.

A moral argument about whether censorship is good or bad deteriorates quickly into accusations about who is more or less patriotic, moral, pious, and so on.

I worry about censorship in many parts of the world.

One thing that success has taught me is censorship

My biggest thing has always been privacy. With an interview such as this where the questions are about me, I struggle to express myself. I have an immediate answer in my head of what I'd say, but sometimes I feel that it would be too honest. So these wheels of censorship start going around my head.

I'm a free speech bigot. I don't like censorship; I just don't think it's a good thing.

I don't believe in censorship in any form.

There's a popular saying that the Internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it. Desire and innovation will trump policy, the argument goes, as clever programmers circumvent controls.

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

If we can't stamp out literature in the country, we can at least stop its being brought in from outside.

The condition every art requires is, not so much freedom from restriction, as freedom from adulteration and from the intrusion of foreign matter.

I think you can leave the arts, superior or inferior, to the conscience of mankind.

Censorship is the thing that stops you doing what you want to do, and what writers want to talk about is what they do, not what stops them doing it.

An attack upon our ability to tell stories is not just censorship - it is a crime against our nature as human beings.

The first condition of progress is the removal of censorship.

We strongly regret the measures taken by the parliament and government today to, in effect, introduce a state of emergency and to introduce censorship of the Albanian press.

There should be no censorship of mail.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? - Who will watch the watchers?

Dat veniam corvis, vexat censura columbas. - Censure acquits the raven, but pursues the dove.

There is clearly a constituency that appreciates the message that Google is sending, that it finds the Chinese government's attitude to the Internet and censorship unacceptable.

There's hardly any governmental censorship in Korea.

Censorship laws are blunt instruments, not sharp scalpels. Once enacted, they are easily misapplied to merely unpopular or only marginally dangerous speech.

One of the most important lessons everyone can take from 'Fahrenheit 9/11,' whether they support the war in Iraq, oppose the war or are undecided, is that we need less censorship in this country, not more.

Censorship reflects a society's lack of confidence in itself. It is a hallmark of an authoritarian regime.

Censorship is imposing on others to live as one wishes to live.

Censorship in China is nothing new, but the growing co-operation of U.S. technology companies in China's repressive policies is.

I can only guess at the pressures of funding an independent theater company in New York, but calling this production 'postponed' does not disguise the fact that it has been canceled. This is censorship born out of fear, and the New York Theatre Workshop, the Royal Court, New York audiences--all of us are the losers.

Under current law, the legal question of whether speech is obscene is determined partly by reference to local community standards, ... EFF is concerned that these venue rules permits censorship of speech on the Internet under the standards of the least tolerant community, negating the values that the community standards doctrine was intended to protect -- diversity and localism in the marketplace of ideas.

Rock 'n' roll is a young form. People over twenty-five ruin it. This whole censorship thing has come about because old people are playing with a form that is essentially young and rebellious. Do you know how brilliant it was for The Beatles to break up when they did?

People who question some of the facts of the Holocaust are ostracized; most publishers are so sensitive they won't even get into the argument. A degree of censorship is imposed that is not articulated in this case.

Wikipedia has experienced censorship at the hands of industry groups and governments, and we are - increasingly, I think - seeing important decisions made by unaccountable, non-transparent corporate players, a shift from the open web to mobile walled gardens, and a shift from the production-based Internet to one that's consumption-based.

Unfortunately, the proponents of censorship won out by inflaming false fears that this critical analysis lesson plan is the equivalent of teaching intelligent design.

I am of course confident that I will fulfill my tasks as a writer in all circumstances -- from my grave even more successfully and more irrefutably than in my lifetime.

If [domain seizure] isn't direct censorship, I don't know what is.

The upshot was, my paintings must burn that English artists might finally learn.

Child labor, not a problem. Censorship, not a problem. Torture, not a problem. Chewing gum in China - oh, my God! You better not be over here chewing gum.

Censorship has kind of disappeared in a way because everything is accessible online.

We're not, in any way, any kind of a censorship organization. We're not anti-media. We believe very strongly in the importance of the First Amendment.

We will mark February one as black day as press freedom was snatched and censorship was imposed on that day.

We will mark February 01 as black day as press freedom was snatched and censorship was imposed on that day.

What really upset me is censorship of the slightest hint of Christianity.

We chose the languages because we wanted to help people, and the people that needed to be helped were Chinese-speaking person, Farsi-speaking person and Arabic-speaking person, ... In these countries, the censorship was so heavy that you need technical skills to circumvent the censorship and to be able to publish things anonymously.

Equally troubling is the reality that western firms are effectively facilitating censorship in China and jeopardizing the welfare of journalists. Fundamental freedoms, including freedom of expression, should not be negotiated away in return for market access. Western businesses have a leadership role to play in encouraging best business practices in local markets, including in the information sector.

Even a very brief tape-delay introduces a form of censorship into the broadcast - not direct governmental control, but it means that a network representative is in effect guessing at what a government might tolerate, which can be even worse.

Every time the president wants to say something important they cut it ... this is blatant censorship and an attempt to prevent him from getting his voice across.

Any test that turns on what is offensive to the community's standards is too loose, too capricious, too destructive of freedom of expression to be squared with the First Amendment. Under that test, juries can censor, suppress, and punish what they don't like, provided the matter relates to "sexual impurity" or has a tendency "to excite lustful thoughts." This is community censorship in one of its worst forms.

As a U.S.-based company that deals primarily in information, we have urged the United States government to treat censorship as a barrier to trade. There's an important role for the United States government to address, in the context of its bilateral government-to-government relationships, the larger issues of free expression, and open communication.

Arthur is free to use that word censorship if he wants. We are in the business of selling paintings and art. And song lyrics are not our expertise.

This country and our Constitution guarantee freedom of speech and association. Censorship at our borders is directly contrary to fundamental American values. Attempts to suppress freedom of speech and association are beneath our country - not to mention a waste of government resources intended to keep Americans safe.

Although the government claims the censorship law is necessary to protect minors, it has not even used all of the tools currently available to protect them from sexually explicit content.

Although it is true that national governments would be free to establish controls over Internet use within their own borders, they already enjoy such powers. China may have instituted troubling censorship controls, but many democratic countries have also created national rules that limit online freedoms.

Americans ought to be concerned about censorship and the use of information by our government. Similarly, we are citizens of the world, and collectively we ought to advocate an approach to information worldwide that is as open and transparent as possible.

There was no real censorship involved, which is a tantalizing draw,

It's a form of censorship in its crudest and rudest form.

The best censorship is self-censorship, and China relies on solid work by the secret police to make people censor themselves and keep the Internet under control.

It's irritating, because I would like to make movies that were as unrelenting and as explicit in their metaphysical, sexual and violent imagery as the stories. But with the way censorship is at present, there's no way you can do that.

The rest of the world has certainly got past this. This kind of censorship no longer exists anywhere else in the free world.

It's related to the problems that Yahoo and Microsoft and others are facing in China, ... but here the issue is that these technology security companies are directly profiting from the censorship regime itself.

The key to effective censorship is to make sure no one's looking, and this time everyone was watching. If BLM can point to a single other instance where it has suspended scientific research because of alleged illegal lobbying, I'll eat my hat.

The censorship is such on television in the U.S. that films like mine don't stand a chance.

I'm not afraid to let the songs say what they want any more so the lack of censorship on my part makes them a little more universal.

If you're going to have a book published in China, that means that you're going to be subject to in-house censorship at the publisher, and then also, of course, the government has an apparatus that is in charge of making sure that ideas that are considered disruptive or overly critical, that those don't get onto bookstore shelves.

Before this, I was actually of the mind that if you're doing the disclosure, this is the way to go. The more I thought about this, I realized this is evil. You're caving into censorship that you in your heart of hearts don't believe in.

[T]he German censorship forbade or mutilated my every book, which was like sticking pins into my soul...

A dreary censorship, and self-censorship, has been imposed on books by the centralization of the book industry.

Censorship is advertising paid by the government.

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

Political correctness is neither political nor is it correct. It amounts to social censorship, and the sooner we spit it out, the better.

Freedom is not only the absence of external restraints. It is also the absence of irresistible internal compulsions, unmanageable passion, and uncensorable highlights.

It is called the First Amendment. ...Simple words marching in seried ranks. Compact, concise. To the point. Clear and pure. It's freedom's music.

As to the evil which results from censorship, it is impossible to measure it, because it is impossible to tell where it ends.

We are in an era where censorship is creeping back in through the Patriot Act and where people are.. being intimidated not to speak about what we should be speaking about,.

I do think it's a larger censorship problem. Here we have to battle just to be in locations. We've been banned from several of the businesses in town.

I believe in censorship when it benefits me.

Government censorship can slow down, but can't reverse this trend.

For someone to dictate to us that after 48 hours, we can no longer use this footage without permission, smacks a little bit of censorship number one. And number two, it's just, basically, unfair.

We do not need a censorship of the press. We have a censorship by the press... It is not we who silence the press. It is the press who silences us.

We change people through conversation, not through censorship.

While the Internet is censored in China, the censorship is allowing a level of speech to take place that's unprecedented.

Any country that has sexual censorship will eventually have political censorship.

Stopping leaks is a new form of censorship.

What does censorship reveal? It reveals fear.

I don't believe in censorship.