Banned Best Quotes & Sayings

For centuries censorship has created best sellers because, as Michel de Montaigne said, 'To forbid us anything is to make us have a mind for it.' (Banned Books: Censorship Histories of World Literature) — Margaret Bald

It is true that the Puritans banned all recreation on Sundays and all games of chance, gambling, bear baiting, horse racing, and bowling in or around taverns at all times. They did so, not because they were opposed to fun, but because they judged these activities to be inherently harmful or immoral. — Leland Ryken

I did write a letter to the archdiocese who'd banned the song, Only the Good Die Young, asking them to ban my next record. — Billy Joel

The referee will now keep track of the time on the field and the shootouts have finally been banned. — Cobi Jones

Football, basketball, and the Olympic sports all have their problems with banned substances. — Jim Sensenbrenner

My mom was a big feminist, and when I was growing up, I wasn't allowed to have typical girl toys: she did not let me have dolls. Barbies were banned in our household. She read feminist books to me; my mom was a major feminist. — Leila Janah

Human rights pale beside the rights of machines. In more and more cities, especially in the great metropolises of the South, people have been banned. Automobiles usurp human space, poison the air, and frequently murder the interlopers who invade their conquered territory -and no one lifts a finger to stop them. Is there a difference between violence that kills by car and that which kills by knife or bullet? (p.231) — Eduardo Galeano

I always order the banned books from a black market dealer in California, figuring if the State of Mississippi banned them, they must be good. — Kathryn Stockett

It was this feeling for a lot of my characters, who are dissidents or banned artists and writers, that they had had to fight living under so much surveillance, and then suddenly they come to America and they're like, I'm not being surveilled - I'm not even being noticed at all. — Molly Antopol

I remember being banned from other houses as a younger child during the winter holiday season; I was the only one who didn't believe in Santa Claus, and I was ruining everyone's Christmas. — Jami Attenberg

I got really offended when my single 'Smile' got banned [during after-school hours] from MTV in the U.K. because it had the word fuck in it. They said, 'We don't want kids to grow up too quickly.' But then you have Paris Hilton and the Pussycat Dolls taking their clothes off and gyrating up against womanizing, asshole men, and that's acceptable. You're thinking your kids are gonna grow up quicker because they heard the word fuck than from thinking they should be shoving their tits in people's faces? — Lily Allen

I've been banned from cutting my own fringe. — Suki Waterhouse

A convention on the comprehensive ban of nuclear weapons should be negotiated. Since biological and chemical weapons have been prohibited, there is no reason why nuclear weapons, which are more destructive, should not be comprehensively banned and thoroughly destroyed. All it takes to reach this objective is strong political will. — Jiang Zemin

The academic world is one of the few places where prejudice is supposed to be totally banned, and we're politically correct on everything, but it's still a place where you can attack religion out of utter, complete, bottomless ignorance and not be considered to have done anything wrong. — Robert Neelly Bellah

The FCC banned throttling for good reason, namely that Internet service providers should not bias their networks toward some applications or classes of applications. Biasing the network interferes with user choice, innovation, decisions of application makers, and the competitive marketplace. — Marvin Ammori

Performance enhancing drugs are banned in the Olympics. OK, we can swing with that. But performance 'debilitating' drugs should not be banned. Smoke a joint and win the 100 metres, fair play for you. That's pretty good. Unless someone's dangling a Mars bar off in the distance. — Eddie Izzard

Russia has banned all adoptions to Americans. So, if you were hoping to get a little white kid with fetal alcohol syndrome, you're going to have to wait until Lindsay Lohan reproduces. — Bill Maher

Google controls two-thirds of the US search market. Almost three-quarters of all Internet users have Facebook accounts. Amazon controls about 30% of the US book market, and 70% of the e-book market. Comcast owns about 25% of the US broadband market. These companies have enormous power and control over us simply because of their economic position. They all collect and use our data to increase their market dominance and profitability. When eBay first started, it was easy for buyers and sellers to communicate outside of the eBay system because people's e-mail addresses were largely public. In 2001, eBay started hiding e-mail addresses; in 2011, it banned e-mail addresses and links in listings; and in 2012, it banned them from user-to-user communications. All of these moves served to position eBay as a powerful intermediary by making it harder for buyers and sellers to take a relationship established inside of eBay and move it outside of eBay. — Bruce Schneier

Stephens resumed speaking as the crowd quieted. He referred to one final "improvement" the Confederate Constitution had introduced, a brief but crucial clause that banned forever any "bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves." "The new Constitution has put at rest, forever, all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institutions - African slavery as it exists among us - the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization." This question, Stephens baldly admitted, "was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution."20 Stephens then referenced — Don H. Doyle

Though Christianity's early history was troubled, fortune eventually favored the new religion when, in the fourth century AD, the Emperor Constantine himself converted to it, banned the persecution of Christians and returned confiscated Church properties. Gradually, the remains of the Popes and important martyrs were removed from catacombs and buried in consecrated ground within the grounds of churches. The sack of Rome by the Goths in AD 410 put an end to the use of the catacombs for fresh burials, though for centuries pilgrims continued to visit them and Popes did their best to preserve and even embellish the important vaults. — Glenn Cooper

Having the freedom to read and the freedom to choose is one of the best gifts my parents ever gave me. — Judy Blume

At primary school, me and my best friend used to do D.I.Y. assemblies, and we'd do it as many times as we could until we got banned! We used to sing 'Hero' by Mariah Carey; it was, like, my favourite song; we were obsessed with it. We'd do it as a duet, and it's the first I remember performing. — Jess Glynne

If there's one American belief I hold above all others, it's that those who would set themselves up in judgment on matters of what is "right" and what is "best" should be given no rest; that they should have to defend their behavior most stringently ... As a nation, we've been through too many fights to preserve our rights of free thought to let them go just because some prude with a highlighter doesn't approve of them."
[Bangor Daily News, Guest Column of March 20, 1992] — Stephen King

Calling a book "Young Adult" is just a fancy way of saying the book is censored. — Oliver Markus

God forbid that any book should be banned. The practice is as indefensible as infanticide. — Rebecca West

Jace was probably the safest boyfriend in the world since he was pretty much banned from (1) getting angry, (2) making sexual advances, and (3) doing anything that would produce an adrenaline rush. — Cassandra Clare

I felt the heat of the animosity they bear towards me, the vindictive nature that drives a man to destroy his neighbour in a fire as if he were a banned book ... for what is the difference? Every book is imbued with the human spirit. — Sjon

The nation of Dubai banned the movie Charlie's Angles because it's "offensive to the religion of Islam." Apparently, the religion of Islam is offended by anything without a plot. — Jon Stewart

No,you're officially banned from listening to us. Or thinking about this. Or even thinking about thinking about this, understand? — Kiersten White

In behaviorism, an infant's talents and abilities didn't matter because there was no such thing as a talent or an ability. Watson had banned them from psychology, together with other contents of the mind, such as ideas, beliefs, desires, and feelings. They were subjective and unmeasurable, he said, and unfit for science, which studies only objective and measurable things. To a behaviorist, the only legitimate topic for psychology is overt behavior and how it is controlled by the present and past environment. (There is an old joke in psychology: What does a behaviorist say after making love? "It was good for you; how was it for me?") — Steven Pinker

It may seem somewhat ironic that the Catholic Church finds itself advocating the same position against abortion as its severest Christian critics, the Protestant fundamentalists. In fact, it is no more surprising than finding the so-called pro-life movement keeping company with Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin and Chairman Mao, all of whom at one time or another banned abortions. What they have in common is their belief, rooted in misogyny, that the woman's right to choose - a fundamental aspect of her autonomy - must be crushed in order to achieve what they have deemed a 'higher' religious, moral or social goal. — Jack Holland

As far as I'm concerned, this is the worst thing that's happened since I found out why Magnus was banned from Peru. — Cassandra Clare

We in the ministry of IT and Communications often get flak for deciding what to ban. We actually never decide something should be banned. We always follow orders from different ministries. — Killi Krupa Rani

Censorship is the child of fear and the father of ignorance. — Laurie Halse Anderson

Of course the reason that the Authorities have banned the stuff is not so much the detrimental effect on one's health, however genuine that might be, but rather that those who regularly partake in the illicit herb tend to lose all interest in playing the game by other people's rules. And that is in direct contravention of the Commandments, the first of which is: Thou shalt play the Game by the rules; the second being: Thou shalt not drop out of the Game. — H.M. Forester

My mother, Nicolette, is the Katagaria Grand Regis Ursulan- so don't start no shit, won't be no shit. Quick rule rundown. No fighting, no biting, no magick. You break the rules, we break body parts and you're banned from here ... if you survive. In short, come in peace or leave in pieces. (Dev) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

The problem in our country isn't with books being banned, but with people no longer reading. You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them." ~Ray Bradbury — Ray Bradbury

While researching this answer, I managed to lock up my copy of Mathematica several times on balloon-related differential equations, and subsequently got my IP address banned from Wolfram|Alpha for making too many requests. The ban-appeal form asked me to explain what task I was performing that necessitated so many queries. I wrote, "Calculating how many rental helium tanks you'd have to carry with you in order to inflate a balloon large enough to act as a parachute and slow your fall from a jet aircraft." Sorry, Wolfram. — Randall Munroe

With a stranglehold of authority it banned the statement for its reproduction or publication in part or in full. The motive on the part of the Government was obvious. It did not want Gandhi to be exposed to the public. The — Anup SarDesai

Annabhau Sathe's Akalechi Gosht (The Dimwit's Tale) performed in front of the temple. This had also been banned. We did not know when the police would arrive and arrest the performers. This satire was like no other we had seen; it had no kings and queens. It spoke of the exploitation we saw around us, offering an aesthetic analysis of our situation. It played all night and we learned some new songs. 'Daulatichya raja, utoon Sarjya, haak de shejaaryaala re, shivari chalaa' ('Oh kings of wealth, Sarjya, wake up, listen to what your neighbours say, let's go back to the fields') and 'Aamhi dhartichya lekra bhaagyavaan' ('We are the fortunate sons of the earth'). — Daya Pawar