Areopagitica is a prose speech in the form of a pamphlet, published in 1644 and addressed to Parliament. Milton argues against a law requiring books to be licensed by authorities before printing. He holds that good and evil grow together in the world, that virtue must be tested by knowledge of error, and that suppressing books harms truth and the nation. Written with energy and fine images, it is one of the earliest and most famous defences of freedom of the press.
Quotes
Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties.
Who kills a man kills a reasonable creature, God's image; but he who destroys a good book, kills reason itself.
A good book is the precious life-blood of a master spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life.
I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary, but slinks out of the race where that immortal garland is to be run for, not without dust and heat.