Censoring Quotes

Van Gogh was a complete nut job! Can you imagine in this day and age, if an artist or writer that you were going to sign or host an exhibit for had just cut off their freaking EAR and mailed it to their unrequited love? Talk about a PR nightmare. No one would be willing to work with that mess – seriously! How would you feel if you were told, "Hey, umm, your next writer just cut her own finger off? No big deal. She's all right."

As artists, we're all kind of odd in our own ways. I think that should be celebrated and more appreciated – I'm not saying that more people should start to cut off their ears or fingers or other appendages – but for god's sake, stop censoring everyone to death. It makes me sick. ~ Kelly Fitzharris Coody

When you make the judgement as a network that there are only three candidates, you are censoring points of view. ~ Tim Robbins

Stop apologizing and censoring yourself, you have every right to feel the way you do. Your feelings, your struggles, your emotions are all valid. ~ Jasmine Sandozz

On New Year's Eve, when the children had gone up the hill to be with their father, I went to a Mensa party in San Francisco, but returned home relatively early, wanting to face the first few hours of the new year away from the noise and lurching of people who had drunk too much. I stood outside on the deck, in darkness, looking up at the star-frosted sky, letting myself feel without censoring the ache and hope that belonged to that night, and I sent out prayer for connection with someone who would be --finally -- the person I'd needed to be with all my life, someone who would have gone through his own changes and wars of the spirit and emerged a true adult. A grown-up man. Who wouldn't mind my being a grandmother, for Pete's sake. A man somewhat like Shura Borodin -- or what Shura seemed to be.
I cried a bit because the wanting was so very intense and the clear night sky so very indifferent, and everything I was in body and soul might yet grow old without a lover and friend who could be to me what I was capable of being to him. I toasted myself, hope, the new year and the magnificent cold stars with a bit of wine, then went to bed. ~ Ann Shulgin

the false innocence
you render for them
by censoring truth
protects only you ~ Laurie Halse Anderson

The Bill of Rights is a literal and absolute document. The First Amendment doesn't say you have a right to speak out unless the government has a 'compelling interest' in censoring the Internet. The Second Amendment doesn't say you have the right to keep and bear arms until some madman plants a bomb. The Fourth Amendment doesn't say you have the right to be secure from search and seizure unless some FBI agent thinks you fit the profile of a terrorist. The government has no right to interfere with any of these freedoms under any circumstances. ~ Harry Browne

The important thing about groupthink is that it works not so much by censoring dissent as by making dissent seem somehow improbable. ~ James Surowiecki

What comes with a job as a staff member of the BBC is a certain self-censoring that you get utterly used to. You don't say everything you think. You hold back on some things. ~ Evan Davis

You cannot win a war if you cannot talk honestly about the enemy Since the 9/11 attacks, political correctness and ideological prejudice - under both Republican and Democratic presidents - have distorted our analysis of the enemy, preventing us from drawing an effective plan to defeat the likes of Al Qaeda and the Islamic State. The Obama administration, blinded by its own preconceived ideas of why terrorism occurs, is influenced by malevolent actors who have an interest in censoring any talk of the religious aspects of the enemy's ideology. At the highest level of the U.S. government, terrorism is deemed to be the result of poverty, unemployment, and lack of political enfranchisement. This fallacy must be jettisoned. We are not at war with Islam. The people most immanently in danger, in fact, are the nonviolent and non-extremist Muslims of the Middle East, such as our allies in Jordan and the modern Muslims of Egypt and the United Arab Emirates. They are on the most important front of this war, and they understand just how much religion truly matters. We do a great disservice to those brave Muslims when we try to convince the world that the threat will disappear if enough people have good jobs and sound educations. ~ Sebastian Gorka

The dirtiest book of all is the expurgated book. ~ Walt Whitman

It's very important not to talk down to kids, and to give them something which they think is quite grown-up and hardcore. Kids themselves are very good at self-censoring. If they don't like something, if they think it's too strong for them, they'll simply stop reading. That's the thing about a book, you can't force someone to read it ... I think there's a lot in my books about friendship, leadership, about society and how it works, how we learn to live with each other and what skills do we need to make a viable society. Kids don't need to know any of that, they just want someone to be eaten again. ~ Charlie Higson

Getting bogged down in old stories stops the flow of learning by censoring our perceptions, making us functionally deaf and blind to new information. Once the replay button gets pushed, we no longer form new ideas or conclusions - the old ones are so cozy. ~ Martha Beck

And when you try to live there, to live in a place where you're betraying yourself over and over, not only do you grow to resent the hell out of it, and resent the hell out of whomever you're betraying and censoring yourself for, but the very idea of your self begins slowly and inexorably to erode. Until you realize one day out of the clear blue that you have no idea who your self is, anymore. ~ Ron Currie Jr.

Writers do the self-censoring before they even get to the studio executive, because they know the film will not run that gauntlet. They, because they want to get their films made, they censor it. ~ Terry Gilliam

I think people are often quite unaware of their inner selves, their other selves, their imaginative selves, the selves that aren't on show in the world. It's something you grow out of from childhood onwards, losing possession of yourself, really. I think literature is one of the best ways back into that. You are hypnotized as soon as you get into a book that particularly works for you, whether it's fiction or a poem. You find that your defenses drop, and as soon as that happens, an imaginative reality can take over because you are no longer censoring your own perceptions, your own awareness of the world. ~ Jeanette Winterson

I think everyone holds back. I am always censoring myself and I'm sorry about it. But I always have to consider whether my remarks might cause someone pain. ~ John Hall

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

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

Still, a person who cannot express love is stopping the flow of life, is censoring where censorship is a form of self-indulgence, the fear of giving oneself away. ~ May Sarton

Be wild; that is how to clear the river. The river does not flow in polluted, we manage that. The river does not dry up, we block it. If we want to allow it its freedom, we have to allow our ideational lives to be let loose, to stream, letting anything come, initially censoring nothing. That is creative life. It is made up of divine paradox. To create one must be willing to be stone stupid, to sit upon a throne on top of a jackass and spill rubies from one's mouth. Then the river will flow, then we can stand in the stream of it raining down. ~ Clarissa Pinkola Estes

The one place where I'm allowed to rebel, and the one place where I'm allowed to not worry about censoring myself is my music. ~ Taylor Swift

We'll beat you yet, you cold-blooded, censored son of a bowdlerized, unprintably expurgated deletion! ~ David R. Palmer

When a library expels a book of mine and leaves an unexpurgated Bible lying around where unprotected youth and age can get hold of it, the deep unconscious irony of it delights me and doesn't anger me. ~ Mark Twain

China's critics rightly condemn the government for controlling public opinion in all sorts of ways, from imprisoning dissidents to censoring internet discussions. Yet the regime's obsession with control paradoxically means it pays close attention to public opinion. ~ Anonymous

Remembering things or processing memories can be a charged, or frightening, or uncomfortable time. It can help to imagine yourself being a reporter. This can take pressure off of needing to remember 'all the details' or not wanting to 'be wrong about something', if you simply just write down whatever comes to you down on paper without editing it, censoring it, or passing judgment - for the time being - on either its content, or on whether it is l00% accurate in every way. Simply write it down and come back to it later, when things may make more sense, or as additional information comes to you... ~ A.T.W.

Islam is not dark but very bright indeed. Islam is not depressing but instead, quite uplifting and inspiring. Islam is not about censoring but instead it is about voluntary submission. ~ Norhafsah Hamid

There's more than one way to be a girl ~ Lauren Faust

And then they started deleting the protest reviews.
That was my line. When they started to stamp out dissent, actually to make it disappear with virtually no excuse for doing so ... that's not neglect. That's not an overwhelmed person or people trying to figure it out. That's an entity that has decided that they do not care, that they have moved on from the issue, do not see it as an issue, and is trying to avoid bad press. Or they are too far down the line to backtrack on what they've been doing and save face. They're content with their wildly inconsistent policy enough to no longer care what effect it is having on their user base.
If you try to silence dissent, then something is very, very wrong. ~ G.R. Reader

Any fear around 'imperfection' is a censoring of life now, and when we censor life we simply cannot sense our innate natural joy. ~ Dhyana Stanley

The Superego, in censoring the unconscious and in implanting conscience, also censors the censor. ~ Herbert Marcuse

Every burned book or house enlightens the world; every suppressed or expunged word reverberates through the earth from side to side. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

It is the freedom to blaspheme, to transgress, to move beyond the pale, that is at the heart of all intellectual, artistic and political endeavor. Far from censoring offensive speech, a vibrant and diverse society should encourage it. In any society that is not uniform, grey and homogeneous, there are bound to be clashes of viewpoints. ~ Kenan Malik

The case against censoring anything is absolute: ... nothing that could be censored can be so bad in its effects, in the long run, as censorship itself. ~ Katharine Whitehorn

The Lord Chamberlin was censoring scripts when I first came into the theater. ~ Judi Dench

For a long time, I can't say I was one who really enjoyed acting. I was always censoring it, or editing it, or analyzing it, rather than just going with it. ~ Michael Douglas

What I find very attractive, what I find sexual, are people who are unapologetic for who they are and comfortable with themselves. And I think with those two things sexual energy does come out because you're not hovering or censoring yourself, you're just being who you are. And being who you are is a very attractive quality in a person. ~ Katherine Moennig

A dead language is not only one no longer spoken or written, it is unyielding language content to admire its own paralysis. Like statist language, censored and censoring. Ruthless in its policing duties, it has no desire or purpose other than maintaining the free range of its own narcotic narcissism, its own exclusivity and dominance. However moribund, it is not without effect for it actively thwarts the intellect, stalls conscience, suppresses human potential. Unreceptive to interrogation, it cannot form or tolerate new ideas, shape other thoughts, tell another story, fill baffling silences. ~ Toni Morrison

Sometimes it's fun to explore ideas that might make people uncomfortable. If you let it, there's a lot of self-censoring that can go on in the name of remaining likeable, but I don't find that an artistically interesting path to take. ~ Ted Alexandro

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

Pluralism also creates a more open system and allows independent media to flourish, making it easier for groups that have an interest in the continuation of inclusive institutions to become aware and organize against threats to these institutions. It is highly significant that the English state stopped censoring the media after 1688. The media played a similarly important role in empowering the population at large and in the continuation of the virtuous circle of institutional development in the United States, as we will see in this chapter. ~ Daron Acemoglu

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

Exhaustion has a way of parting the veils between men, not so much because the effort of censoring their words exceeds them, but because weariness is the foe of volatility. Oft times insults that would pierce the wakeful simply thud against the sleepless and fatigued. ~ R. Scott Bakker

It seems not more reasonable to leave the right of printing unrestrained, because writers may be afterwards censured, than it would be to sleep with doors unbolted, because by our laws we can hang a thief. ~ Samuel Johnson

One thing is for sure-none of the arts flourishes on censorship and repression. And by this time it should be evident that the American public is capable of doing its own censoring. ~ Eleanor Roosevelt

We are afraid that our adult sexuality will somehow damage our kids, that it's inappropriate or dangerous. But whom are we protecting? Children who see their primary caregivers at ease expressing their affection (discreetly, within appropriate boundaries) are more likely to embrace sexuality with the healthy combination of respect, responsibility, and curiosity it deserves. By censoring our sexuality, curbing our desires, or renouncing them altogether, we hand our inhibitions intact to the next generation. ~ Esther Perel

Yes, books are dangerous. They should be dangerous - they contain ideas. ~ Pete Hautman

Men, gay or straight, can get beauty and lewdness into one image. Women are forever softening, censoring, politicizing. ? ~ Camille Paglia

'Paper Planes' was an accident. It wasn't a song we made for the masses. It took two years to get popular, and there were many fights about censoring the gunshot sounds. ~ M.I.A.

What you really have to do, if you want to be creative, is to unlearn all the teasing and censoring that you've experienced throughout your life. If you are truly a creative person, you know that feeling insecure and lonely is par for the course. You can't have it both ways: You can't be creative and conform, too. You have to recognize that what makes you different also makes you creative. ~ Arno Allan Penzias

After he was assassinated, his family and the men who had served him continued the lying and began the destruction, censoring and hiding of JFK's medical records. ~ Richard Reeves

I go through fan mail myself, but I think I might get them censored, because I'm always expecting to get the one thing that says, 'I know where you live and I'm going to kill you!' I'm always expecting that to come, but it never seems to arrive. I never get any negative mail, so someone must be censoring them. ~ Robert Pattinson

She trusted him, but she didn't trust herself with him. The things she imagined doing to him, or rather, having him do to her, were too explicit that even her mind had begun censoring them. ~ Dreama ~ Jennifer Hines

When someone's acting for a scene, they can fool the camera. But in everyday life, unless you're watching and censoring yourself every minute, or spending all your time in the company of ladies, what you feel is bound to show in your eyes. ~ Cesar Romero

You fiddle lucker!' she cried. ~ Scott Westerfeld

If some books are deemed most baneful and their sale forbid, how then with deadlier facts, not dreams of doting men? Those whom books will hurt will not be proof against events. Events, not books should be forbid. ~ Herman Melville

God is with the vanquished, not with the victors! At a time when His Holiness, the infallible Pope of Christendom, is concluding a peace agreement, a Concordat, with the enemies of Christ, when the Protestant's are establishing a "German church" and censoring the Bible, we descendants of the old Jews, the forefathers of European culture, are the only legitimate German representatives of that culture. Thanks to inscrutable divine wisdom, we are physically incapable of betraying it to the heathen civilization of poison gases, to the ammonia-breathing, Germanic war god. ~ Joseph Roth

We are not 'censored' in the traditional way in the United States: writers are not beaten or killed because of their words, and no Ministry of Truth enforces an official version of what can be printed and thought. But in this culture of images, we are censoring ourselves. That may be more insidious and long-lasting. What I mean is that we disparage long-term complexity, and extol superficiality. We ignore reading, and lavish time on images. To read, in my mind, is to consider and to think. To see an image is to react. What happens when we start believing the world and what is important in it are only these reactions and prejudices? What have you become when the most expected of you is simply to press a 'Like' button? What kind of gulag is it when its inhabitants are too stupid to understand they are its prisoners? ~ Sergio Troncoso

If any issue should unite liberals and conservatives, anyone who cares about the integrity of human achievement or respect for human accomplishment, may we not all pledge to avoid the silly censoring that can lead to a codification of Orwell's Newspeak? Consider John Milton's reasons for why good arguments are often lost: 'For want of words, no doubt, or lack of breath!' ~ Stephen Jay Gould