Reference Quote

Shuffle
They say that Caliph Omar, when consulted about what had to be done with the library of Alexandria, answered as follows: 'If the books of this library contain matters opposed to the Koran, they are bad and must be burned. If they contain only the doctrine of the Koran, burn them anyway, for they are superfluous.' Our learned men have cited this reasoning as the height of absurdity. However, suppose Gregory the Great was there instead of Omar and the Gospel instead of the Koran. The library would still have been burned, and that might well have been the finest moment in the life of this illustrious pontiff.

Similar Quotes

Quote search results. More quotes will automatically load as you scroll down, or you can use the load more buttons.

If they succeed in destroying our books or even making many of them inaccessible, there will be a chilling effect on the hundreds of other libraries that lend digitized books as we do. This could be the burning of the Library of Alexandria moment—millions of books from our community's libraries—gone.

Unlimited Quote Collections

Organize your favorite quotes without limits. Create themed collections for every occasion with Premium.

Our dear Son, the Chancellor of Paris, and the Doctors, before the clergy and people, publicly burned by fire the aforesaid books (The Talmud) with all their appendices. We beg and beseech your Celestial Majesty in the Lord Jesus, that, having begun laudably and piously to prosecute those who perpetuate these detestable excesses, that you continue with due severity. And that you command throughout your whole kingdom that the aforesaid books with all their glossaries, already condemned by the Doctors, be committed to the flames. Firmly prohibiting Jews from having Christians as servants and nurses.

[In the United States, during the early 2000s, Rowling's books were burned by Evangelical Christians because they were perceived as promoting witchcraft.] Book burners, by definition, have placed themselves across a line of rational debate.
There is no book on this planet that I would burn, including books that I do think are damaging. Burning, to me, is the last resort of people who cannot argue.

In the 13th century "Popes Gregory IX and Innocent IV condemned the books of the Talmud as containing every kind of vileness and blasphemy against Christian truth, and ordered them to be burned because they spread many horrible heresies."

Razed the garden, profaned the chalices and the altars, by horse the Huns broke into the Monastic library and they tore the incomprehensible books and they vituperated them and they burnt them, fearing their symbols and characters might be concealing secret blasphemies against their God, who was an iron scimitar...

It hardly matters why a library is destroyed: every banning, curtailment, shredding, plunder or loot gives rise (at least as a ghostly presence) to a louder, clearer, more durable library of the banned, looted, plundered, shredded or curtailed. Those books may no longer be available for consultation, they may exist only in the vague memory of a reader or in the vaguer-still memory of tradition and legend, but they have acquired a kind of immortality.

Share Your Favorite Quotes

Know a quote that's missing? Help grow our collection.

But what do you think would happen if we had burned a copy of the Koran on tonight's show? There would be riots in scores of countries. Embassies would fall. In response to our mistreating a book, millions of Muslims would take to the streets, and we would spend the rest of our lives fending off credible threats of murder. But when ISIS crucifies people, buries children alive, and rapes and tortures women by the thousands—all in the name of Islam—the response is a few small demonstrations in Europe and a hashtag.

PREMIUM FEATURE
Advanced Search Filters

Filter search results by source, date, and more with our premium search tools.

The entire pre-Columbian literature of Mexico, a vast library of tens of thousands of codices, was carefully and systematically destroyed by the priests and friars who followed in the wake of the conquistadors. In November 1530, for example, Bishop Juan de Zumárraga, who had shortly before been apointed 'Protector of the Indians' by the Spanish crown, proceeded to 'protect' his flock by burning at the stake a Mexican aristocrat, the lord of the city of Texcoco, whom he accused of having worshipped the rain god. In the city's marketplace Zumárraga 'had a pyramid formed of the documents of Aztec history, knowledge and literature, their paintings, manuscripts, and hieroglyphic writings, all of which he committed to the flames while the natives cried and prayed.'
More than 30 years later, the holocaust of documents was still under way. In July 1562, in the main square of Mani (just south of modern Merida in the Yucatan), Bishop Diego de Landa burned thousands of Maya codices, story paintings, and hieroglyphs inscribed on rolled-up deer skins. He boasted of destroying countless 'idols' and 'altars,' all of which he described as 'works of the devil, designed by the evil one to delude the Indians and to prevent them from accepting Christianity.' Noting that the Maya 'used certain characters or letters, which they wrote in their books about the antiquities and their sciences' he informs us: 'We found a great number of books in these letters, and since they contained nothing but superstitions and falsehoods of the devil we burned them all, which they took most grievously and which gave them great pain.

Works in ChatGPT, Claude, or Any AI

Add semantic quote search to your AI assistant via MCP. One command setup.

All books written in Sanskrit and Marathi, whatever their subject matter, were seized by the Inquisition and burnt on the suspicion that they might deal with idolatry. It is probable that valuable non-religious literature dealing with art, literature, sciences, etc., was destroyed indiscriminately, as a consequence. These activities had been initiated in Goa even before the establishment of the Inquisition. For instance, there is a letter dated November 28, 1548, in which D. Fr. Joao de Albuquerque proudly reports his achievements in that direction.”

(The Romans have set fire to the Library of Alexandria)

THEODOTUS: — What is burning there is the memory of mankind.
CAESAR: — A shameful memory. Let it burn.
THEODOTUS (wildly): — Will you destroy the past?
CAESAR: — Ay, and build the future with its ruins.

Perhaps the various burnings of the Alexandria Library were necessary, like those Australian Forest Fires without which the new seeds cannot burst their shells and make a young, healthy forest.

Loading more quotes...

Loading...