Book Burning and Censorship

With the end of the Middle Ages, uncontrolled book burning ceased, but attempts to thwart people from developing new ideas - and writing about them - continued. John Milton, the famous English poet and author of Paradise Lost, gave an impassioned speech to the British Parliament in 1644, urging freedom of expression:

...(W)ho kills a man kills a reasonable creature, God's image; but he who destroys a good book kills reason itself.

Milton's words were themselves condemned by Parliament. So was the book that contained them: Areopagitica.