Text: Books are weapons in the war of ideas. Books cannot be killed by fire. People die, but books never die. No man and no force can put thought in a concentration camp forever. No man and no force can take from the world the books that embody man’s eternal fight against tyranny. In this war, we know, books are weapons.

Year: 1942

Publisher: Office of War Information.

Artist: S. Broder.

Additional information: The phrase “books are weapons in the war of ideas” was coined and adopted as a motto by the Council on Books in Wartime, an association of booksellers, publishers, librarians and other organisations founded in 1942. Roosevelt was one of the association’s enthusiastic supporters, and the quote comes from a speech Roosevelt delivered at a banquet held by the American Booksellers Association, one of the more prominent organisations within the Council. The evil of the book burnings became a prominent theme in a series of posters published throughout the year, usually with an emphasis on the Council’s motto.