"Any public committee man who tries to pack the moral cards in the interest of his own notions is guilty of corruption and impertinence. The business of a public library is not to supply the public with the books the committee thinks good for the public, but to supply the public with the books the public wants. … Censorship ends in logical completeness when nobody is allowed to read any books except the books that nobody can read. But as the ratepayer is mostly a coward and a fool in these difficult matters, and the committee is quite sure that it can succeed where the Roman Catholic Church has made its index expurgatorius the laughing-stock of the world, censorship will rage until it reduces itself to absurdity; and even then the best books will be in danger still."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
George Bernard Shaw, as quoted in "Literary Censorship in England" in Current Opinion, Vol. 55, No. 5 (November 1913), p. 378; this has sometimes appeared on the internet in paraphrased form as "Censorship ends in logical completeness when nobody is allowed to read any books except the books that nobody reads."
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Censorship
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Censorship
84 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Censorship →
Related Quotes
"Let children read whatever they want and then talk about it with them. If parents and kids can talk together, we won'…"
"It's not just the books under fire now that worry me. It is the books that will never be written. The books that will…"
"While people are always quick to take up the cudgels against censorship of the press, or radio, any crackpot can advo…"
"For several years now, various groups have urged the banning of crime pictures on the ground that they influence yout…"
"Censorship is the mother of metaphor."
"There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running about with lit matches. Every mino…"
"Only six weeks ago, I discovered that, over the years, some cubby-hole editors at Ballantine Books, fearful of contam…"
"Captain Beatty: Colored people don't like Little Black Sambo. Burn it. White people don't feel good about Uncle Tom's…"
"What progress we are making. In the Middle Ages they would have burned me. Now they are content with burning my books."
"Suppression is the instrument of a totalitarian dictatorship; we don’t talk of that sort of thing in a free country! …"