Let us be clear: censorship is cowardice. ... It masks corruption. It is a school of torture: it teaches, and accustoms one to the use of force against an idea, to submit thought to an alien "other." But worst still, censorship destroys criticism, which is the essential ingredient of culture.

As we see censorship it is a stupid giant traffic policeman answering "Yes" to "Am I my brother's copper?" He guards a one-way street and his semaphore has four signs, all marked "stop."

We are willing enough to praise freedom when she is safely tucked away in the past and cannot be a nuisance. In the present, amidst dangers whose outcome we cannot foresee, we get nervous about her, and admit censorship.

Where there is official censorship it is a sign that speech is serious. Where there is none, it is pretty certain that the official spokesmen have all the loudspeakers.

Persons who undertake to pry into, or cleanse out all the filth of a common sewer, either cannot have very nice noses, or will soon lose them.

No government ought to be without censors; and where the press is free, no one ever will.

Men in earnest have no time to waste In patching fig-leaves for the naked truth.

We'll open in Boston and stay there two weeks. Maybe they'll make us cut out some of the dirty stuff, but we can put it back in for New York.

Censorship may be useful for the preservation of morality, but can never be so for its restoration.

Assassination is the extreme form of censorship.