Who really said it

Don't join the book burners. Don't think you are going to conceal faults by concealing evidence that they ever existed

Q: Is "Don't join the book burners. Don't think you are going to conceal faults by concealing evidence that they ever existed" really by Dwight D. Eisenhower?

Yes. Eisenhower spoke the words at the Dartmouth College commencement exercises in Hanover, New Hampshire, on 14 June 1953. The Eisenhower Presidential Library's own quotations page reproduces the passage and attributes it to those remarks, and Quote Investigator records the earliest press citation as the New York Times of 15 June 1953, page 10, column 5. The two sentences here open a four-sentence passage that ends "That should be the only censorship."

Spoken by Dwight D. Eisenhower 1890–1969 · 34th president of the United States

Verified Free to reuse

Eisenhower spoke the words at the Dartmouth College commencement exercises in Hanover, New Hampshire, on 14 June 1953. The Eisenhower Presidential Library’s own quotations page reproduces the passage and attributes it to those remarks, and Quote Investigator records the earliest press citation as the New York Times of 15 June 1953, page 10, column 5. The two sentences here open a four-sentence passage that ends “That should be the only censorship.”

Last verified 7 Aug 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

For presentations

Put it on a slide

Verified quote & credit

“Don't join the book burners. Don't think you are going to conceal faults by concealing evidence that they ever existed” Dwight D. Eisenhower, Remarks at the Dartmouth College Commencement Exercises, 14 June 1953

Can you use it?

Free to use, including in commercial and paid presentations — no permission or licence needed.

Image direction — grounded in this quote’s real context; paste into your image tool

In context

Evoking the world of Dwight D. Eisenhower — Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force and 34th president of the United States. Theme: "Don't join the book burners. Don't think you are going to conceal faults by concealing evidence that they ever existed". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Minimalist

Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "Don't join the book burners. Don't think you are going to conceal faults by concealing evidence that they ever existed". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Provenance

The source

Occasion: Remarks at the Dartmouth College Commencement Exercises
Delivered: 14 June 1953, Hanover, New Hampshire
Speaker: Dwight D. Eisenhower, 34th president of the United States
Earliest citation: New York Times, 15 June 1953, p. 10, col. 5 — per Quote Investigator

Don’t join the book burners. Don’t think you are going to conceal faults by concealing evidence that they ever existed. Don’t be afraid to go in your library and read every book, as long as that document does not offend our own ideas of decency. That should be the only censorship.

The two sentences this page indexes open the passage. The continuation follows the transcription on the Eisenhower Presidential Library’s quotations page; Quote Investigator reproduces the opening two sentences from the earliest press report.

Period printing

A 1953 broadside in the Library of Congress Printed Ephemera Collection

The Eisenhower Library’s transcription (archived)

How we verified this

Eisenhower spoke at the Dartmouth College commencement in Hanover, New Hampshire on 14 June 1953. The Eisenhower Presidential Library’s quotations page ↗ (archived) prints the passage and attributes it to “Remarks at the Dartmouth College Commencement Exercises, Hanover, New Hampshire, 6/14/53”.
Quote Investigator ↗ credits the remark to Eisenhower at Dartmouth and gives the earliest citation as the New York Times of 15 June 1953, page 10, column 5, reproducing these two sentences verbatim.
Wikiquote ↗ carries the same four-sentence passage under the same date and occasion.
The line was printed as ephemera at the time. The Library of Congress holds a 1953 item catalogued as “Don’t join the book burners … Dwight David Eisenhower. Hanover, N. H. Dartmouth College. 1953” ↗ in its Printed Ephemera Collection. Quote Investigator also notes that the line is sometimes reproduced with “book banners” in place of “book burners”; the sources above all read burners.

Public domain

Remarks by the president of the United States in his official capacity are works of the United States Government, which carry no copyright under 17 U.S.C. § 105 ↗. The text is free to reproduce.

Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.

Context

Why it mattered

Eisenhower delivered the address in his first year in the White House, at a moment when what American libraries held had become a political question. Quote Investigator ↗, tracing the remark, quotes William Safire’s 1968 account of the period: there was pressure “not only against leftists, liberals, and dissenters in general, but also against the presence of their books in publicly sponsored libraries.”

In the passage itself Eisenhower names no one. The sentence has outlived the argument that produced it, which is why it returns to circulation whenever a library’s shelves become contested ground.

That should be the only censorship.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Freedom Knowledge Truth

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Don’t Join the Book Burnersquoteinvestigator.com

Quote Investigator’s trace of the remark and its earliest press citation.

Eisenhower Library quotations (archived)web.archive.org

The presidential library’s own transcription, with occasion and date.

Dwight D. Eisenhowerwikiquote.org

Sourced Eisenhower quotations, including the full four-sentence passage.

“Don’t join the book burners”, 1953tile.loc.gov

A 1953 printed-ephemera item in the Library of Congress collection.

Dwight D. Eisenhowerwikipedia.org

Biography of the wartime commander and 34th president.

The author

About Dwight D. Eisenhower

Dwight D. Eisenhower

1890–1969 · Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force and 34th president of the United States

Dwight D. Eisenhower commanded the Allied Expeditionary Force in Europe in the Second World War and served as president of the United States from 1953 to 1961. He gave these remarks at Dartmouth in his first year in office, telling a graduating class to go into the library and read every book — an instruction aimed at a moment when what libraries held had become a political question.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

The primary source (Chicago)

Dwight D. Eisenhower, “Remarks at the Dartmouth College Commencement Exercises, Hanover, New Hampshire,” 14 June 1953. Earliest press citation: New York Times, 15 June 1953, p. 10, col. 5.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘Don't join the book burners. Don't think you are going to conceal faults by concealing evidence that they ever existed’?” Last verified 7 Aug 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/dont-join-the-book-burners-dont-think-you-are-going-to/

Something wrong on this page?

Tell us what’s off. A link helps but isn’t required — “this is the wrong person” is a useful report on its own. Nothing here changes the page directly; it goes to our review queue and a human checks it.

The attribution is wrong — someone else said it The wording is wrong The rights / copyright information is wrong A source link is broken Nothing — I have a source that supports this Something else

Your email (optional)

Only used to tell you if we act on your report. We never sell or share it.