What John Milton thinks about censorship
English poet and polemicist (1608 to 1674); author of Paradise Lost and Areopagitica.
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7 dated positions, c. 1644, in their own words. Our reading of what John Milton has said — not written or endorsed by them.
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Their wordsAnd again, if it be true that a wise man, like a good refiner, can gather gold out of the drossiest volume, and that a fool will be a fool with the best book, yea or without book; there is no reason that we should deprive a wise man of any advantage to his wisdom, while we seek to restrain from a fool, that which being restrained will be no hindrance to his folly.
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Their wordsWhich is what I promised to deliver next: that this order of licensing conduces nothing to the end for which it was framed; and hath almost prevented me by being clear already while thus much hath been explaining.
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Their wordsThey are not skilful considerers of human things, who imagine to remove sin by removing the matter of sin; for, besides that it is a huge heap increasing under the very act of diminishing, though some part of it may for a time be withdrawn from some persons, it cannot from all, in such a universal thing as books are; and when this is done, yet the sin remains entire.
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Their wordsI lastly proceed from the no good it can do, to the manifest hurt it causes, in being first the greatest discouragement and affront that can be offered to learning, and to learned men.
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Their wordsGive me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties.
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Their wordsLet her and Falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the worse, in a free and open encounter? Her confuting is the best and surest suppressing.
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Our readingBooks found mischievous or libellous after printing are best dealt with by fire and the executioner
Their wordsThose which otherwise come forth, if they be found mischievous and libellous, the fire and the executioner will be the timeliest and the most effectual remedy that man's prevention can use.