QuoteProject
The whole principle (censorship) is wrong; it's like demanding that grown men live on skim milk because the baby can't eat steak.
Robert A. Heinlein
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

Censorship restricts freedom and expression, forcing everyone to conform to the least demanding standards.

In this quote, Robert A. Heinlein criticizes the practice of censorship, suggesting that it unjustly limits the freedoms of mature individuals based on the perceived vulnerabilities of others. He uses the metaphor of requiring adults to settle for something less nourishing, like skim milk, simply because an infant cannot handle more complex food like steak, to highlight the absurdity and unfairness of such restrictions on expression and thought.

Themes

CensorshipFreedomExpressionWrongPrinciple

In practice

Example use cases

In a speech about the importance of free speech, you might use this quote to emphasize the dangers of censorship.

More from Robert A. Heinlein

The most important lesson in the writing trade is that any manuscript is improved if you cut away the fat.
Robert A. HeinleinRead
An armed society is a polite society.
Robert A. HeinleinRead
Democracy is a poor system of government at best; the only thing that can honestly be said in its favor is that it is eight times as good as any other method the human race has ever tried.
Robert A. HeinleinRead
Long human words (the longer the better) were easy, unmistakable, and rarely changed their meanings . . . but short words were slippery, unpredictable, changing their meanings without any pattern.
Robert A. HeinleinRead
Progress is made by lazy men looking for easier ways to do things.
Robert A. HeinleinRead
When a place gets crowded enough to require ID's, social collapse is not far away. It is time to go elsewhere. The best thing about space travel is that it made it possible to go elsewhere.
Robert A. HeinleinRead

Similar quotes

I don't think Romney is wacky at all, but religion makes intelligent people say and do wacky things, believe and affirm crazy things. Left on his own, Romney would never have said something like the Garden Of Eden was in Missouri, and will be again.
Christopher HitchensRead
he had been making an unsuccessful effort to write something about nothing in particular
Aldous HuxleyRead
A fly, Sir, may sting a stately horse and make him wince; but, one is but an insect, and the other is a horse still.
Samuel JohnsonRead
Of all the statist violations of individual rights in a mixed economy, the military draft is the worst. It is an abrogation of rights. It negates man’s fundamental right-the right to life-and establishes the fundamental principle of statism: that a man’s life belongs to the state, and the state may claim it by compelling him to sacrifice it in battle. Once that principle is accepted, the rest is only a matter of time.
Ayn RandRead
Religion is probably, after sex, the second oldest resource which human beings have available to them for blowing their minds.
Susan SontagRead
Where is it I've read that someone condemned to death says or thinks, an hour before his death, that if he had to live on some high rock, on such a narrow ledge that he'd only room to stand, and the ocean, everlasting darkness, everlasting solitude, everlasting tempest around him, if he had to remain standing on a square yard of space all his life, a thousand years, eternity, it were better to live so than to die at once. Only to live, to live and live! Life, whatever it may be!
Fyodor DostoevskyRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.