Quotes & Sayings About Self Censorship

But poets were not considered dangerous and they were advised to exercise self-censorship. At most, poets were requested not to write at all. I took advantage of this negative liberty. — Eugenio Montale

Schools - play the race card incessantly against their fellow students and their professors, leading to an atmosphere of nervous self-censorship. — Anonymous

I have a really good idea of who my readers are and always write with a sensitivity to my audience. I use the F word when necessary, but there are words I won't use, mainly because I don't like them. I don't write about body parts when I write about sex. It's not about the physiological, it's more important for teens to read about the emotional aspects. I do think there are times when self-censorship is important. — Ellen Hopkins

Still, a person who cannot express love is stopping the flow of life, is censoring where censorship is a form of self-indulgence, the fear of giving oneself away. — May Sarton

But it also came at a significant cost for human rights, and today's restricted freedom of expression, self-censorship and stunted multi-party democracy. — Phil Robertson

When you're on your own, you have all the self-censorship that everybody has when they try and write. All the little voices that say, 'No, you can't write that, what will they think of that?' — Nick Cave

I think the enemy is self-censorship. In a free society the biggest danger is that you're afraid to the point where you censor yourself. — Tim Robbins

It's harder to pick and choose when you're dead. It's like a photograph, you know. It doesn't matter as much. — Neil Gaiman

I know the fashion is that everything is fair game [for comedy material] but I don't believe that. — Craig Ferguson

Scholars, who pride themselves on speaking their minds, often engage in a form of self-censorship which is called "realism." To be "realistic" in dealing with a problem is to work only among the alternatives which the most powerful in society put forth. It is as if we are all confined to a, b, c, or d in the multiple choice test, when we know there is another possible answer. American society, although it has more freedom of expression than most societies in the world, thus sets limits beyond which respectable people are not supposed to think or speak. — Howard Zinn

A big change is coming, and politicians, self-important scientists, and unctuously blathering religious leaders may want to, but will never be able to, stop it. There is no vaccination against thinking. Ideas know no boundaries and no censorship. And what's more, ideas have a dangerous tendency to spread like wildfire. — Erich Von Daniken

A dreary censorship, and self-censorship, has been imposed on books by the centralization of the book industry. — Erica Jong

Our words had to be circumspect. We could not write anything too negative about our circumstances. This was tricky, since the very form of a married woman's letter needed to include the usual complaints
that we were pathetic, powerless, worked to the bone, homesick, and sad. We were supposed to speak directly about our feelings without appearing ungrateful, no-account, or unfilial. — Lisa See

Self-censorship is the most insidious form of censorship. — Marty Rubin

Self-censorship is insulting to the self. Timidity is a hopeless way forward. — Ai Weiwei

A phallocentric culture is more likely to begin its censorship purges with books on pelvic self-examination for women or bookscontaining lyrical paeans to lesbianism than with See Him Tear and Kill Her or similar Mickey-Spillanesque titles. — Robin Morgan

I don't engage in self-censorship. But I do change everybody to have red hair in the last draft ... If you give people red hair when in real life they haven't got red hair, I've noticed they don't recognize themselves, anyway. — Carol Bly

The State has always one purpose: to limit, control, subordinate the individual and subject him to the general purpose Through its censorship, its supervision, and its police the State tries to obstruct all free activity and sees this repression as its duty, because the instinct of self-preservation demands it. The State does not permit me to use my thoughts to their full value and communicate them to other men unless they are its own Otherwise it shuts me up. — Max Stirner

It is really exhausting to live in a dictatorship of 'Me', which is basically a tyranny of others. — Stefan Molyneux

Self-censorship as a result of intimidation or social pressures, sometimes referred to as "political correctness", constitutes a serious obstacle to the proper functioning of democracy. It is important to hear the views of all persons,including the "silent majority", and to give heed to the weaker voices. — Alfred-Maurice De Zayas

Totalitarian rule thrives on its subjects' ignorance of the extent to which the surveillance system is monitoring their lives. The possibility, rather than the fact, of surveillance is enough to generate fear, anxiety, and informal pressures to conform, to downplay dissenting opinions, to declare one's absolute loyalty. Thus an enforced culture of self-censorship emerges in communities that used to express their political opinions freely. — Arun Kundnani

Censorship is the commonest social blasphemy because it is mostly concealed, built into us by indolence, self-interest and cowardice. — John Osborne

Sometimes I think you have to try to do things that people don't think are doable. I remember at the very beginning actually, the first person I had to convince was myself really because there's a self-censorship. When everybody says 'we don't do silent movies anymore,' you agree with everybody, and you say 'yeah, you're right.' It was a fantasy. — Michel Hazanavicius

Self-censorship is a lie to yourself; if you are going to be trying to seriously create art, to create literary art, and you decide to hold back, to censor yourself, then you are a fool to yourself and it would be better that you kept your mouth shut and did not speak. — Salman Rushdie

In general, opinions contrary to those commonly received can only obtain a hearing by studied moderation of language, and the most cautious avoidance of unnecessary offence, from which they hardly ever deviate even in a slight degree without losing ground: while unmeasured vituperation employed on the side of the prevailing opinion, really does deter people from professing contrary opinions, and from listening to those who profess them. — John Stuart Mill

At CBS, I'm in your house. I'm mindful of that. When I do standup, you're in my home and I can say what I want to. — Craig Ferguson

Once you get used to censorship, sometimes you self-censor. — Lucien Bourjeily

Censorship, I believe, is the most dangerous enemy to all human communication, and piety of intention is probably the most dangerous, the most virulent and the most self-satisfying. — Chuck Jones

I saw that publishing all over the world was deeply constrained by self-censorship, economics and political censorship, while the military-industrial complex was growing at a tremendous rate, and the amount of information that it was collecting about all of us vastly exceeded the public imagination. — Julian Assange

Growing up in a religious environment, children learn what not to do sexually. They learn that some practices or ideas, such as homosexuality, lust, masturbation, and pornography are sinful. These ideas are embedded in the minds of children years before they are ready for marriage, so it's no surprise that many religious people have little or no experience with sex and know little about their sexuality.
The guilt cycle that results from this training creates a form of self-censorship. Because so many sex acts and ideas are liable to lead to eternal damnation, people have a strong incentive to avoid expressing or discussing secretly held ideas and interests. Fear leads to hidden thoughts and activities and prevents normal, appropriately channeled sexual expression. — Darrel Ray

You should not be subjected to the pressures, the intimidation, whether by Government or by the private sector, which would force you into self-censorship. — Alfred-Maurice De Zayas

The worst evil is - and that's the product of censorship - is the self-censorship, because that twists spines, that destroys my character because I have to think something else and say something else, I have to always control myself. — Milos Forman

Self-censorship, whether known or unknown, is an unwelcome brake on creativity; it stifles self-expression and hence prevents a work from reaching the heights of great art. — Semir Zeki

I should say here, because some in Washington like to dream up ways to control the Internet, that we don't need to 'control' free speech, we need to control ourselves. — Peggy Noonan

Many people have been protesting against what they describe as censorship on Goodreads. I disgree. In fact, I would like to say that I welcome the efforts that Goodreads management is making to improve the deplorably low quality of reviewing on this site.
Please, though, just give me clearer guidelines. I want to know how to use my writing to optimize Amazon sales, especially those of sensitive self-published authors. This is a matter of vital importance to me, and outweighs any possible considerations of making my reviews interesting, truthful, creative or entertaining. — Manny Rayner

Media censorship is a prohibition of words and pictures. The war on drugs is a complete failure, and so is the American war on words. When you forbid a word, you give it power. Self-proclaimed rebels will use words like shit or fuck, simply to shock and sound cool. — Oliver Markus

Self-censorship, the most important and most successful form of censorship, is rampant. Debate is identified with dissent, which is in turn identified with disloyalty. There is a widespread feeling that, in this new, open-ended emergency, we may not be able to 'afford' our traditional freedoms. — Susan Sontag

Are you a censor? Do you tell people not to say "girl"? Shame on you! If nothing offends you, you're a saint or you're psychotic. If a few things offend you, deal with them
fairly. If you're often offended by things, you're probably a self-righteous asshole and it's too bad you weren't censored yourself
by your mother in an abortion clinic. — William T. Vollmann

Political writing in our time consists almost entirely of prefabricated phrases bolted together like the pieces of a child's Meccano set. It is the unavoidable result of self-censorship. To write in plain, vigorous language one has to think fearlessly, and if one thinks fearlessly one cannot be politically orthodox. — George Orwell

There were counter-protests, of course, and in the end Mapplethorpe's work was exhibited, but the message to the arts community was clear: stray too far from the innocuous, and the axe would fall. Call it selective censorship: freedom of expression was guaranteed unless it was expressed in a work of art. The most amazing aspect of this American morality play was not that the government would place self-interest above principle when it felt threatened, but that no one foresaw this coming from miles down the road. A reminder from history: the American Revolution was not financed with matching Grants from the Crown. COMMON — David Bayles

There's something about writing that demands a leave-taking, an abandonment of the world, paradoxically, in order to see it clearly. This retreat has to be accomplished without severing the vital connection to the world, and to people, that feeds the imagination. It's a difficult balance. And here is where these ruminations about writing touch on morality. The same constraints to writing well are also constraints to living fully. Not to be a slave to fashion or commerce, not to succumb to arid self-censorship, not to bow to popular opinion - what is all that but a description of the educated, enlightened life? — Jeffrey Eugenides

SeLF censorsHIP?
Not my strong suit ... I dont want to be a total d o u c h e b a g , but a little bit of one. — Misha Collins

Censorship defeats the right to self determination. — Billy Forbes

We'll beat you yet, you cold-blooded, censored son of a bowdlerized, unprintably expurgated deletion! — David R. Palmer

Society develops a type of self-censorship, with the knowledge that surveillance exists - a self-censorship that is even expressed when people communicate with each other privately. — Julian Assange