Dangerous Books

1. Dangerous Books Knowledge is powerful, dangerous, and deadly Celebration of Inquiry Conference February 18, 1999 Coastal Carolina University

2. Bonfire of the Liberties

3. “He who destroys a good Book, kills reason itself John Milton, Aeropagitica, 1644

5. There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written, that is all. Oscar Wilde 1891

6. “racist” “creates an emotional block” “trash” “inappropriate language”

7. A stand can be made against invasion by an army; no stand can be made against invasion by an idea. Victor Hugo “Histoire d’un Crime”

8. Whenever books are burnedmen also in the end are burned Heinrich Heine (1797-1856)

9. Germany, 1933

10. What was once thought can never be unthought. Freidrich Durrenmatt “The Physicists”

11. The burning of an author’s books, imprisonment for opinion’s sake, has always been the tribute an ignorant age pays to the genius of its times. Joseph Lewis Voltaire: The Incomparable Infidel 1929

12. “obscene” “anathema”

13. All censorships exist to prevent anyone from challenging current conceptions and existing institutions. George Bernard Shaw

14. To prohibit the reading of certain books is to declare the inhabitants to be either fools or slaves. Claude Adrien Helvetius De l’Homme

15. “a real downer” “sexually offensive”

16. Heresy is only another word for freedom of thought Graham Greene 1981

17. Catholic Church 1559-1964

18. If men’s minds were as easily controlled as their tongues, every king would sit safely on his throne, and government by compulsion would cease. Baruch Spinoza 1670

19. Of all the Tyrannies of human kindThe worst is that which Persecutes the mind.Let us but weigh at what offence we strike.“Tis but because we cannot think alike. John Dryden 1665

20. 16th Century Europe

21. Every burned book enlightens the world. Ralph Waldo Emerson 1842

22. 12th-13th Century France SANTO DOMINGO Y LOS ALBIGENSESPedro BerrugueteCourtesy Art Resources, New York City

23. Don’t join the book burners. Don’t think you’re going to conceal faults by concealing evidence that they ever existed. Dwight D. Eisenhower 1953

24. The Temperature at which Books Burn

25. I believe in censorship. After all, I made a fortune out of it. Mae West 1971

26. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press... Bill of Rights, 1791

27. “vulgar words” “full of filth” “takes the Lord’s name in vain”

28. It is most unworthy to suppress books or silence teachers. Judah Loew 1598

29. Give me six lines written by the most honorable of men, and I will find an excuse in them to hang him. Attributed to Cardinal Richelieu 1641

30. 18th Century France

31. If we restrict the reading of certain books until minds are prepared for them, the minds will never be prepared for them. A. Whitney Griswold 1954

32. Censorship, like charity, should begin at home; but unlike charity it should end there. Clare Boothe Luce 20th century

33. “nudity”

34. Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth-more than ruin, even more than death. Bertrand Russell 20th Century

35. U. S. A. 1982

36. If we want truth, every man ought to be free to say what he thinks without fear. If advocates on one side are to be rewarded with miters, and the advocates on the other with rope or stake, truth will not be heard. Desiderius Erasmus Dec. 6, 1520

37. 18th Century France

38. We all know that books burn-yet we have the greater knowledge that books can not be killed by fire. People die, but books never die. No man and no force can abolish memory. Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1942

39. God forbid that any book should be banned, the practice is as indefensible as infanticide Rebecca West (1928)

40. Banned Books

41. 10 Most Frequently Challenged Books 1997 • I Know Why the Caged Bird SingsMaya Angelou • It’s Perfectly Normal Robie Harris • Goosebumps Series R.L. Stine • Alice Series Phyllis Reynolds Naylor • Of Mice and Men John Steinbeck

42. 10 Most Frequently Challenged Books, 1997 • The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Mark Twain • The Giver Lois Lowry • A Day No Pigs Would Die Robert Newton Peck • Kaffir Boy Mark Mathabane • Bridge to Terabitha Katherine Paterson

43. “preaches bitterness” “rape scene inappropriate”

44. It is often the best books that draw the beadiest attention of the censors. These are the books that really have the most to offer, the news that life is rich and complicated and difficult. Loudon Wainwright 1982

45. “sexually graphic” “language” “explicitness”

46. Materials that view human life critically, quizzically or satirically are bound to give offense to someone. John F. Baker 1990

47. You cannot put a rope around the neck of an idea; you cannot put an idea up against a barrack-square wall and riddle it with bullets; you cannot confine it in the strongest prison cell that your slaves could ever build. Sean O’Casey 1918

48. “corruptive” “obscene”

49. I know many books which have bored their readers, but I know none which has done real evil. Voltaire 1764

50. “sexually offensive” “anti-Christian behavior” “profane” “immoral”