Restriction of Expression Quotes

Do not use power to suppress opinions you think pernicious, for if you do the opinions will suppress you.

Here's a nation, one of the founding pillars was freedom of speech and freedom of expression. And yet, we have imposed upon people restrictions on what they can say, on what they can think. And the media is the largest proponent of this, crucifying people who say things really quite innocently.

I do not favor the gag order.

Everyone champions freedom of expression in the abstract but few can resist calling for censorship when they do not like what is being expressed.

It's very worrying at this time in the world that any point of view should be prohibited, that's banned, there are heretics that should be burned at the stake.

If you exile a writer, however free the country he is sent to, there will always be a sense of internal constraint.

I have a very specific definition of censorship. Censorship must be done by the government or it's not censorship.

In the 1980s, in the communist Eastern Germany, if you owned a typewriter, you had to register it with the government. You had to register a sample sheet of text out of the typewriter. And this was done so the government could track where text was coming from.

Censorship is the height of vanity.

No one likes when debate gets stifled, when these events get cancelled, whether it's a former president or prime minister of Israel, whether it's a discussion on a panel.

It is pretty safe to assume that any given censor is a fool. The very fact that he is a censor indicates that.

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

Obscenity is a moral concept in the verbal arsenal of the establishment, which abuses the term by applying it, not to expressions of its own morality but to those of another.

The Iranian government advocates free speech... but there's no freedom after you've spoken

Censorship feeds the dirty mind more than the four-letter word itself.

Self-censorship is the most devastating thing for an artist.

The function of the censor is to censor. He has a professional interest in finding things to suppress.

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

Censorship is advertising paid by the government.

While the debate over banned books usually seems to happen just outside the gates of government, it takes on a new danger and urgency when legislators get involved. Their actions cause voices to be silenced both inside and outside the books. That's un-American.

There is nothing more dangerous for a population than self-censorship by fear.

Censors, the whole idea of it, is so childish. You feel like you're talking to hall monitors in school again.

To circumscribe our freedom of thought because of the delicate sensibilities of suburban paper pushers is the most despicable type of totalitarian tyranny imaginable.

The church in all ages and among all peoples has been the consistent enemy of the human race. Everywhere and at all times, it has opposed the liberty of thought and expression. It has been the sworn enemy of investigation and intellectual development. It has denied the existence of facts, the tendency of which was to undermine its power. It has always been carrying fagots to the feet of Philosophy. It has erected the gallows for Genius. It has built the dungeon for Thinkers.