"Where they have burned books, they will end in burning human beings." (German: "Dort, wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man am Ende auch Menschen.")—Heinrich Heine, from his play Almansor (1821) * * * * * * Don't think you're going to conceal faults by concealing evidence that they ever existed. Don't be afraid to go in your library and read every book, as long as any document does not offend our own ideas of decency. That should be the only censorship. How will we defeat communism unless we know what it is, what it teaches, and why does it have such an appeal for men, why are so many people swearing allegiance to it? It's almost a religion, albeit one of the nether regions. And we have got to fight it with something better, not try to conceal the thinking of our own people. They are part of America. And even if they think ideas that are contrary to ours, their right to say them, their right to record them, and their right to have them at places where they're accessible to others is unquestioned, or it's not America.—Dwight David Eisenhower From the remarks of the President of the United States at the Dartmouth College Commencement, June 14, 1953. Courtesy of Dartmouth College Library. * * * * * * * * * "You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them." “There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running about with lit matches." "Somewhere the saving and putting away had to begin again and someone had to do the saving and keeping, one way or another, in books, in records, in people's heads, any way at all so long as it was safe, free from moths, silverfish, rust and dry rot, and men with matches." -Ray BRADBURY U.S. science-fiction writer (1920-) * * * * * * * * * "Every burned book enlightens the world." -Ralph Waldo EMERSON American poet and essayist (1803-1882) * * * * * * * * * "What progress we are making. In the Middle Ages they would have burned me. Now they are content with burning my books." -Sigmund FREUD 1933 * * * * * * * * * “Congress Shall Make No Law Respecting an Establishment of Religion, or Prohibiting the Free Exercise Thereof; or Abridging the Freedom of Speech, or of the Press; or the Right of the People Peaceably to Assemble, and To Petition the Government for a Redress of Grievances.”--First Amendment * * * * * * * * * Outside, even through the shut window pane, the world looked cold. Down in the street little eddies of wind were whirling dust and torn paper into spirals, and though the sun was shining and the sky a harsh blue, there seemed to be no color in anything except the posters that were plastered everywhere. The black-mustachio'd face gazed down from every commanding corner. There was one on the house front immediately opposite. BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU, the caption said, while the dark eyes looked deep into Winston's own. Down at street level another poster, torn at one corner, flapped fitfully in the wind, alternately covering and uncovering the single word INGSOC. In the far distance a helicopter skimmed down between the roofs, hovered for an instant like a bluebottle, and darted away again with a curving flight. It was the Police Patrol, snooping into people's windows. The patrols did not matter, however. Only the Thought Police mattered.--George Orwell,1984 * * * * * * * * * “I don't want to be shut out from the truth. If they ban books, they might as well lock us away from the world.”--Rory Edwards, 12, Washington Post, Getting It Down at Writing Camp * * * * * * * * * “Men feared witches and burnt women. It is the function of speech to free men from the bondage of irrational fears.”--U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis (1856–1941), Whitney v. California, 274 U. S. 357 (1927) * * * * * * * * * “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.”--Alfred Whitney Griswold, Essays on Education * * * * * * * * * * “Restriction of free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us.”--Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas * * * * * * * * * * “Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech.” “They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”--Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759 * * * * * * * * * * “We must teach students about their First Amendment rights rather than restrict their use of particular books and materials. As educators, we must encourage students to express their own opinions while respecting the views of others.”--Protect Our Freedom of Speech, Teach It?, Pat Scales * * * * * * * * * * “Free speech is the whole thing, the whole ball game. Free speech is life itself.”--Salman Rushdie * * * * * * * * * * “It will be asked whether one would care to have one’s young daughter read these books. I suppose that by the time she is old enough to wish to read them she will have learned the biologic facts of life and the words that go with them. There is something seriously wrong at home if those facts have not been met and faced and sorted by then; it is not children so much as parents that should receive our concern about this. I should prefer that my own three daughters meet the facts of life and the literature of the world in my library than behind a neighbor’s barn, for I can face the adversary there directly. If the young ladies are appalled by what they read, they can close the book at the bottom of page one; if they read further, they will learn what is in the world and in its people, and no parents who have been discerning with their children need fear the outcome. Nor can they hold it back, for life is a series of little battles and minor issues, and the burden of choice is on us all, every day, young and old.”--Judge Curtis Bok, Commonwealth v. Gordon, 66 Pa. D. & C. 101, 110. * * * * * * * * * * “Damn all expurgated books; the dirtiest book of all is the expurgated book.”--Walt Whitman * * * * * * * * * * “Without Freedom of Thought, there can be no such Thing as Wisdom; and no such Thing as public Liberty, without Freedom of Speech.”--Benjamin Franklin * * * * * * * * * * “[I]t’s not just the books under fire now that worry me. It is the books that will never be written. The books that will never be read. And all due to the fear of censorship. As always, young readers will be the real losers.”--Judy Blume * * * * * * * * * * “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”--Beatrice Hall, The Friends of Voltaire, 1906 * * * * * * * * * * “I am really mortified to be told that, in the United States of America, a fact like this [i.e., the purchase of an apparent geological or astronomical work] can become a subject of inquiry, and of criminal inquiry too, as an offense against religion; that a question about the sale of a book can be carried before the civil magistrate. Is this then our freedom of religion? and are we to have a censor whose imprimatur shall say what books may be sold, and what we may buy? And who is thus to dogmatize religious opinions for our citizens? Whose foot is to be the measure to which ours are all to be cut or stretched? Is a priest to be our inquisitor, or shall a layman, simple as ourselves, set up his reason as the rule for what we are to read, and what we must believe? It is an insult to our citizens to question whether they are rational beings or not, and blasphemy against religion to suppose it cannot stand the test of truth and reason. If [this] book be false in its facts, disprove them; if false in its reasoning, refute it. But, for God’s sake, let us freely hear both sides, if we choose.”--Thomas Jefferson to N. G. Dufief, 1814. ME 14:127 * * * * * * * * * * “Every man—in the development of his own personality—has the right to form his own beliefs and opinions. Hence, suppression of belief, opinion and expression is an affront to the dignity of man, a negation of man’s essential nature.”--Toward a General Theory of the First Amendment, Thomas Emerson * * * * * * * * * Tibet had been occupied by Communist China since 1950. In 1966, the Cultural Revolution wrought havoc in this country too. Red Guards invaded the leading monastery in Tibet and destroyed frescoes and irreplaceable historic manuscripts. Elsewhere in the country, heavy damage was inflicted as well, including the burning of religious and historic manuscripts. E.M. Neterowicz, The Tragedy of Tibet. Washington, 1989, p.61–62