Source identified
Read & copy the quotation
“As good almost kill a man as kill a good book.”
- Source
- Areopagitica
- Date
- 1644
Meaning of “As good almost kill a man as kill…”
Milton deliberately makes the value of a good book morally weighty, because a book can preserve insight beyond the lifetime of its author.
Where does it come from?
Areopagitica, Project Gutenberg #608. ‘As good almost kill a man as kill a good book’ follows Milton's claim that books preserve living intellect and introduces his comparison between destroying a book and killing reason. It remains a 1644 anti-licensing political-religious polemic rather than a literal equivalence in modern law, medicine or violence assessment.
