Freedom to Read Week 2007

"An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all." -Oscar Wilde

"Free societies... are societies in motion, and with motion comes tension, dissent, friction. Free people strike sparks, and those sparks are the best evidence of freedom's existence." -Salman Rushdie

"The fact is that censorship always defeats its own purpose, for it creates, in the end, the kind of society that is incapable of exercising real discretion." -Henry Steele Commager

"Censorship reflects society's lack of confidence in itself. It is a hallmark of an authoritarian regime." -Potter Stewart

"Books won't stay banned. They won't burn. Ideas won't go to jail. In the long run of history, the censor and the inquisitor have always lost. The only weapon against bad ideas is better ideas." -Alfred Whitney Griswold

"The paper burns, but the words fly away." -Akiba ben Joseph

"Every burned book enlightens the world." -Ralph Waldo Emerson

"If your library is not 'unsafe', it probably isn't doing its job." -John Berry, Library Journal, October 1999