Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations. 1989.
NUMBER:
168
AUTHOR:
Alfred Whitney Griswold (1906–63)
QUOTATION:
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. The source of better ideas is wisdom. The surest path to wisdom is a liberal education.
ATTRIBUTION:
A. WHITNEY GRISWOLD, president of Yale, “A Little Learning,” The Atlantic Monthly, November 1952, p. 52. Address to students at Phillips Academy, Andover, New Hampshire, spring 1952.
