In the long run [censorship] will create a generation incapable of appreciating the difference between independence of thought and subservience.
As to the evil which results from censorship, it is impossible to measure it, because it is impossible to tell where it ends.
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.
People must not think that all bad in man which is unleashed, the moment you impose censorship disappears from man.
Censorship is never over for those who have experienced it. It is a brand on the imagination that affects the individual who has suffered it, forever.
The more bans you have in a society, the more you will have radical elements.
If you live in a country where there is nothing comparable to free information, often literature becomes the only way to be more or less informed about what's going on.
This is precisely the purpose of censorship - not only to block unwanted views, but to keep people who are unhappy from knowing how many millions of others share their unhappiness; to keep the dormant opposition from awakening to its own developing strength.
Our civilisation cannot afford to let the censor-moron loose. The censor-moron does not really hate anything but the living and growing human consciousness.
The worst, most insidious effect of censorship is that, in the end, it can deaden the imagination of the people. Where there is no debate, it is hard to go on remembering, every day, that there is a suppressed side to every argument.
My books for adults had been previously challenged and banned so I'd had experience with it. I always find it sad and amusing: Sad to think that such archaic and potentially dangerous censorious beliefs still exist, and amused because these censors only make a book more powerful and seductive when trying to ban it.
