WIST Quotations

Vonnegut, Kurt, Jr. -- Essay (2004-08-06), “I Love You, Madame Librarian,” In These Times Magazine, Vol. 29, No. 20 (2004-08-30)

Dave — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 08:38:35 +0000

And on the subject of burning books: I want to congratulate librarians, not famous for their physical strength or their powerful political connections or their great wealth, who, all over this country, have staunchly resisted anti-democratic bullies who have tried to remove certain books from their shelves, and have refused to reveal to thought police the names of persons who have checked out those titles.
So the America I loved still exists, if not in the White House or the Supreme Court or the Senate or the House of Representatives or the media. The America I love still exists at the front desks of our public libraries.

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (1922-2007) American novelist, journalist
Essay (2004-08-06), “I Love You, Madame Librarian,” In These Times Magazine, Vol. 29, No. 20 (2004-08-30)
(Source)

Collected in A Man without a Country, ch. 9 "Do Unto Others" (2005).

Snicket, Lemony -- A Series of Unfortunate Events, Book 12, The Penultimate Peril, ch. 13 (2005)

Dave — Mon, 01 Jun 2026 07:00:40 +0000

The burning of a book is a sad, sad sight, for even though a book is nothing but ink and paper, it feels as if the ideas contained in the book are disappearing as the pages turn to ashes and the cover and binding — which is the term for the stitching and glue that holds the pages together — blacken and curl as the flames do their wicked work. When someone is burning a book, they are showing utter contempt for all of the thinking that produced its ideas, all of the labor that went into its words and sentences, and all of the trouble that befell the author ….

Lemony Snicket (b. 1970) American author, screenwriter, musician (pseud. for Daniel Handler)
A Series of Unfortunate Events, Book 12, The Penultimate Peril, ch. 13 (2005)
(Source)

Roosevelt, Eleanor -- Column (1943-05-11), “My Day”

Dave — Tue, 06 Jan 2026 18:40:16 +0000

In the democracies of the world, the passion for freedom of speech and of thought is always accentuated when there is an effort anywhere to keep ideas away from people and to prevent them from making their own decisions. One of the best ways of enslaving a people is to keep them from education and thus make it impossible for them to understand what is going on in the world as a whole. […] The second way of enslaving a people is to suppress the sources of information, not only by burning books, but by controlling all the other ways in which ideas are transmitted.

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) First Lady of the US (1933–1945), politician, diplomat, activist
Column (1943-05-11), “My Day”
(Source)

Kastner, Erich -- Speech (1958-05-10), “Über das verbrennen von büchern [On the Burning of Books],” Hamburg PEN Conference

Dave — Thu, 27 Mar 2025 18:01:35 +0000

The events from 1933 to 1945 should have been fought in 1928 at the latest. Later it was too late. We must not wait until the struggle for freedom is called treason. We must not wait until the snowball has turned into an avalanche, we must crush the rolling snowball. Nobody can stop the avalanche! It only comes to rest when it has buried everything underneath it.
That is the lesson, that is the conclusion of what happened to us in 1933, that is the conclusion we must draw from our experiences, and it is the conclusion of my speech. Impending dictatorships can only be fought before they have taken power. It is a matter of an appointment calendar, not heroism.

[Die Ereignisse von 1933 bis 1945 hätten spätestens 1928 bekämpft werden müssen. Später war es zu spät. Man darf nicht warten, bis der Freiheitskampf Landesverrat genannt wird. Man darf nicht warten, bis aus dem Schneeball eine Lawine geworden ist. Man muß den rollenden Schneeball zertreten. Die Lawine hält keiner mehr auf. Sie ruht erst, wenn sie alles unter sich begraben hat.
Das ist die Lehre, das ist das Fazit dessen, was uns 1933 widerfuhr. Das ist der Schluß, den wir aus unseren Erfahrungen ziehen müssen, und es ist der Schluß meiner Rede. Drohende Diktaturen lassen sich nur bekämpfen, ehe sie die Macht übernommen haben. Es ist eine Angelegenheit des Terminkalenders, nicht des Heroismus.]

Erich Kästner (1899-1974) German writer, poet, screenwriter, satirist
Speech (1958-05-10), “Über das verbrennen von büchern [On the Burning of Books],” Hamburg PEN Conference
(Source)

Collected in Kastner, Gesammelte Schriften für Erwachsene [Collective Writings for Adults], Book 8 "Miscellaneous Articles III" (1969).

The speech was given on the 25th anniversary of the 1933 book burnings in Berlin. 1928 was the first federal election in Germany when the Nazi Party had federal candidates. It only received 3% of the vote.

This quote is forwarded through social media frequently, in a variety of translations and edits, usually without citation.

(Source (German)). Alternate translations:

The events 1933–1945 should have been combated by 1928. Later was too late. We must not wait until the fight for freedom is called treason. We must not wait until the snowball has turned into an avalanche. You have to crush the rolling snowball. No one can stop the avalanche. It only comes to rest when it has buried everything underneath it.
That is the lesson of what happened to us in 1933. Impending dictatorships can only be fought before they have taken power.
[Source]

They should have been combated by 1928 at the latest. Later it was too late. We must not wait until the struggle for freedom is called treason. We must not wait until the snowball has turned into an avalanche. You have to crush the rolling snowball. No one can stop the avalanche. It only comes to rest when it has buried everything underneath it.
That is the lesson, that is the conclusion of what happened to us in 1933. That is the conclusion we must draw from our experiences.
[Source]

The events from 1933 to 1945 should have been battled in 1928 at the latest. Later was already too late. One must not wait until liberty is called treason. One must not wait till the snowball has become an avalanche. One must squelch the rolling snowball. The avalanche can't be stopped anymore [...]
[Source]

The events from 1933 to 1945 should have been stopped in 1928 at the latest. After that it was too late. You can't wait until the struggle for freedom is labeled as treason. You need to squash the rolling snowball. No one can stop the ensuing avalanche after that. It ends only after everything is ruined.
[...] Threatening dictatorships can only be stopped before they have taken power.
[Source]

The events of 1933 to 1945 should have been fought against by 1928 at the latest. Later it was too late. We must not wait until the fight for freedom is called treason. We must not wait until the snowball has become an avalanche. We must crush the rolling snowball. No one can stop the avalanche. It will not rest until it has buried everything beneath it.
That is the lesson, that is the conclusion of what happened to us in 1933. That is the conclusion we must draw from our experiences, and it is the end of my speech. Threatening dictatorships can only be fought against before they have taken power.
[Source]

The events from 1933 until 1945 should've been eradicated as late as 1928. Later is too late. We cannot wait until the fight for freedom is called treason. We cannot wait until the snowball has turned into an avalanche. We must trample the rolling snowball. Nobody can stop the avalanche. It won't rest until it has buried everything.
[...] Threatening dictatorships can only be fought before they have gained power.
[Source]

Young, Nedrick -- Inherit the Wind, film (1960) [with Harold Jacob Smith]

Dave — Tue, 07 Nov 2023 23:59:49 +0000

Can’t you understand that if you take a law like evolution and make it a crime to teach it in public schools, tomorrow you could make it a crime to teach it in private schools, and tomorrow you may make it a crime to read about it? And soon you may ban books and newspapers. And then you may turn Catholic against Protestant, and Protestant against Protestant, and try to foist your own religion upon the mind of man. If you can do one you can do the other, because fanaticism and ignorance is forever busy and needs feeding.

Nedrick Young (1914-1968) American screenwriter and actor [pseud. Nathan E. Douglas]
Inherit the Wind, film (1960) [with Harold Jacob Smith]
(Source)

The original 1951 play was written by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee, but does not include this line, delivered in the film by Spencer Tracy. Young and Smith share the screenwriting credits.

Jackson, Holbrook -- The Fear of Books, Part 2, ch. 1 (1932)

Dave — Wed, 31 May 2023 13:56:00 +0000

History proves there is no better advertisement for a book than to condemn it for obscenity. Forbidden fruits have unique flavors, and the bounds of suppression create new limits of desire.

Holbrook Jackson (1874-1948) English journalist, editor, author
The Fear of Books, Part 2, ch. 1 (1932)
(Source)

Asimov, Isaac -- (Attributed)

Dave — Thu, 10 Mar 2022 21:26:55 +0000

Any book worth banning is a book worth reading.

Isaac Asimov (1920-1992) Russian-American author, polymath, biochemist
(Attributed)

Brodsky, Joseph -- Press conference, Library of Congress, Washington (17 May 1991)

Dave — Tue, 11 May 2021 15:08:57 +0000

There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them.

Joseph Brodsky (1940-1996) Russian-American poet, essayist, Nobel laureate, US Poet Laureate [Iosif Aleksandrovič Brodskij]
Press conference, Library of Congress, Washington (17 May 1991)

On accepting the US Poet Laureateship.

Bradbury, Ray -- Fahrenheit 451, “Coda” Afterword (1979 ed.)

Dave — Thu, 15 Apr 2021 20:56:51 +0000

There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running about with lit matches. Every minority, be it Baptist/Unitarian, Irish/Italian/Octogenarian/Zen Buddhist, Zionist/Seventh-day Adventist, Women’s Lib/Republican, Mattachine/Four Square Gospel feels it has the will, the right, the duty to douse the kerosene, light the fuse. Every dimwit editor who sees himself as the source of all dreary blanc-mange plain-porridge unleavened literature licks his guillotine and eyes the neck of any author who dares to speak above a whisper or write above a nursery rhyme.

Ray Bradbury (1920-2012) American writer, futurist, fabulist
Fahrenheit 451, “Coda” Afterword (1979 ed.)
(Source)

Bradbury wrote the coda to his dystopian 1953 novel about censorship when he found out that "offensive" phrases had been deleted from high school editions of the book.

Carlin, George -- Show (1988-08-15), What Am I Doing in New Jersey?, Park Performing Arts Center, Union City, New Jersey (HBO)

Dave — Thu, 01 Apr 2021 17:31:42 +0000

A Reverend Donald Wildmon in Mississippi heard something on the radio that he didn’t like. Well, Reverend, did anyone ever tell you there are two knobs on the radio? Two. Knobs. On the radio.
Of course, I’m sure the reverend isn’t that comfortable with anything that has two knobs on it.
But hey, Reverend, there are two knobs on the radio! One of them turns the radio off, and the other one changes the station! Imagine that, Reverend, you can actually change the station! It’s called freedom of choice, and it’s one of the principles this country was founded upon.
Look it up in the library, Reverend, if you have any of them left when you’ve finished burning all the books.

George Carlin (1937-2008) American comedian
Show (1988-08-15), What Am I Doing in New Jersey?, Park Performing Arts Center, Union City, New Jersey (HBO)

(Source (Video))

White, E. B. -- “Freedom” (Jul 1940)

Dave — Thu, 25 Feb 2016 14:38:03 +0000

I am inordinately proud these days of the quill, for it has shown itself, historically, to be the hypodermic which inoculates men and keeps the germ of freedom always in circulation, so that there are individuals in every time in every land who are the carriers, the Typhoid Mary’s, capable of infecting others by mere contact and example. These persons are feared by every tyrant — who shows his fear by burning the books and destroying the individuals.

E. B. White (1899-1985) American author, critic, humorist [Elwyn Brooks White]
“Freedom” (Jul 1940)

Roosevelt, Franklin Delano -- Letter (1942-04-23), “Message to American Booksellers Association,” Annual Banquet (1942-05-06), Astor Hotel, New York City

Dave — Thu, 18 Feb 2016 15:03:09 +0000

We all know that books burn — yet we have the greater knowledge that books cannot be killed by fire. People die, but books never die. No man and no force can abolish memory. No man and no force can put thought in a concentration camp forever. No man and no force can take from the world the ideas that embody man’s eternal fight against tyranny of every kind. In this war, we know, books are weapons.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882–1945) American lawyer, politician, statesman, US President (1933–1945)
Letter (1942-04-23), “Message to American Booksellers Association,” Annual Banquet (1942-05-06), Astor Hotel, New York City
(Source)

The letter was delivered with a speech by Archibald MacLeish (appointed by Roosevelt as Librarian of Congress, 1939-1944) titled "A Free Man's Books." This was shortly after FDR named April 17 as "Victory Book Day".

This quotation was turned into a poster by S. Broder, published by the US Office of War Information in 1942.

Umar I -- (Attributed)

Dave — Thu, 11 Feb 2016 16:13:46 +0000

If these writings of the Greeks agree with the book of God, they are useless and need not be preserved; if they disagree, they are pernicious and ought to be destroyed.

Umar I (c. 583-644) Arab caliph, jurist [Omar, Umar ibn Al-Khattāb, Al-Farooq]
(Attributed)

Ordering the burning of the Library of Alexandria in AD 641, as quoted in Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776-88). The story is generally considered spurious. More discussion here. Alt. trans.: "They will either contradict the Koran, in which case they are heresy, or they will agree with it, so they are superfluous"

~Other -- John W. Bradbury, National Baptist Watchman-Examiner (13 Sep 1934)

Dave — Thu, 04 Feb 2016 14:51:41 +0000

It was a great relief to be in a country where salacious sex literature cannot be sold; where putrid motion pictures and gangster films cannot be shown. The new Germany has burned great masses of corrupting books and magazines along with its bonfires of Jewish and communistic libraries.

(Other Authors and Sources)
John W. Bradbury, National Baptist Watchman-Examiner (13 Sep 1934)

On being a delegate to the Baptist World Alliance Congress in Berlin.

Adams, John -- Letter (1814-12-14) to John Taylor

Dave — Thu, 28 Jan 2016 16:59:24 +0000

What havoc has been made of Books through every Century of the Christian Æra? Where are fifty Gospells condemned as spurious by the Bull of Pope Gelasius. Where are the forty Waggon Loads of Hebrew Manuscripts burned in France by order of another Pope, because suspected of Heresy? Remember the Index expurgatorius, the Inquisitions, the Stake, the Axe the halter and the Guillotine; and Oh! horrible the Rack. This is as bad if not worse than a slow fire.

John Adams (1735–1826) American lawyer, Founding Father, statesman, US President (1797–1801)
Letter (1814-12-14) to John Taylor
(Source)

Lerner, Max -- “The Vigilantes and the Chain of Fear,” New York Post (24 Jun 1953)

Dave — Tue, 10 Mar 2015 11:58:35 +0000

The crime of book purging is that it involves a rejection of the word. For the word is never absolute truth, but only man’s frail and human effort to approach the truth. To reject the word is to reject the human search.

Maxwell "Max" Lerner (1902-1992) American journalist, columnist, educator
“The Vigilantes and the Chain of Fear,” New York Post (24 Jun 1953)

Regarding the McCarthy era book burnings. Reprinted in The Unfinished Country, pt. 4 (1959).

Griswold, Whitney -- “A Little Learning,” speech, Phillips Academy, Andover (1952, Spring)

Dave — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 10:09:31 +0000

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 sure weapon against bad ideas is better ideas.

Whitney Griswold (1906–1963) American historian, educator [Alfred Whitney Griswold]
“A Little Learning,” speech, Phillips Academy, Andover (1952, Spring)
(Source)

Reprinted in The Atlantic Monthly (1952-11) and Griswold's Essays in Education (1954).

Eisenhower, Dwight David -- Commencement Speech, Dartmouth College (14 Jun 1953)

Dave — Sun, 01 Feb 2004 16:00:00 +0000

Don’t join the book burners. Don’t think you are going to conceal thoughts by concealing evidence that they ever existed. Don’t be afraid to go in your library and read every book, as long as that document does not offend your own ideas of decency. That should be the only censorship.

Dwight David Eisenhower (1890-1969) American general, US President (1953-61)
Commencement Speech, Dartmouth College (14 Jun 1953)

Heine, Heinrich -- Almansor: A Tragedy, l. 245 (1823)

Dave — Sun, 01 Feb 2004 16:00:00 +0000

Wherever they burn books they will also, in the end, burn human beings.

[Dort, wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man auch am Ende Menschen.]

Heinrich Heine (1797-1856) German poet and critic
Almansor: A Tragedy, l. 245 (1823)

Alt trans:

"Where they burn books, at the end they also burn people."
"Where they burn books, they will also burn people."
"It is there, where they burn books, that eventually they burn people."
"Where they burn books, so too will they in the end burn human beings."
"Where they burn books, they also burn people."
"Them that begin by burning books, end by burning men."
"Wherever books are burned, sooner or later men are also burned."

Freud, Sigmund -- Letter to Ernest Jones (Jan 1933)

Dave — Sun, 01 Feb 2004 16:00:00 +0000

What progress we are making. In the Middle Ages they would have burned me. Now they are content with burning my books.

Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) Austrian psychoanalyst and neurologist
Letter to Ernest Jones (Jan 1933)
(Source)

Regarding Nazi book burnings in Germany. Reprinted in Jones, Sigmund Freud: Life and Work, Vol. 3, Part 1, ch. 4 (1957).