Restriction of Ideas Quotes

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

Control over the use of one's ideas really constitutes control over other people's lives; and it is usually used to make their lives more difficult.

We cannot allow religious hooligans to place limiting points on thought.

I am well acquainted with all the arguments against freedom of thought and speech - the arguments which claim that it cannot exist, and the arguments which claim that it ought not to. I answer simply that they don't convince me and that our civilization over a period of four hundred years has been founded on the opposite notice.

Censorship reflects a society's lack of confidence in itself.

I think that when we start thought-policing people and idea-policing people, then that's crossing a line. And I think, you know, everybody's so afraid of this imaginary line of thought police that they forget their own personal safety.

It's incredible that they censor films. It's sad.

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

You have no right to erect your toll gate upon the highways of thought.

What is more tempting for a censor than to censor?

I am against censorship. I don't think there is anything more stupid than censorship.

Everyone has an opinion, and the guy screaming for censorship may be the next guy to have his ideas cut off.

Censorship constrains art and limits its impact as much as it does with all free thought.

Censorship has had a long history in the western world. Book banning is as old as books.

We can't let censorship take over.

I fundamentally do not believe in the patenting of software. It would be like Shakespeare patenting the tragic love story.

... the greatest discouragement and affront that can be offered to learning and to learned men .... More than if some enemy at sea should stop up all our havens and ports, it [licensing] hinders and retards importation of our richest Merchandise, Truth.

When a man is required to believe certain doctrines, he is not free to think. A creed is to keep the mind from inquiry. Questions lead to doubt, and doubt is the death of faith.

If you understand this refrain, you're gonna' understand everything I want to say to you today. It has four parts: Creativity and innovation always builds on the past. The past always tries to control the creativity that builds upon it ., Free societies enable the future by limiting this power of the past ., Ours is less and less a free society.

Where there is official censorship it is a sign that speech is serious.