Obscenity quotes:

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Obscenity is whatever happens to shock some elderly and ignorant magistrate. -- Bertrand Russell
Obscenity, which is ever blasphemy against the divine beauty in life, is a monster for which the corruption of society forever brings forth new food, which it devours in secret. -- Percy Bysshe Shelley
Obscenity is a moral concept in the verbal arsenal of the establishment, which abuses the term by applying it, not to expressions of its own morality but to those of another. -- Herbert Marcuse
Obscenity is our name for the uneasiness which upsets the physical state associated with self-possession, with the possession of a recognized and stable individuality. -- Georges Bataille
Obscenity is not a quality inherent in a book or picture, but is solely and exclusively a contribution of the reading mind, and hence cannot be defined in terms of the qualities of a book or picture. -- Theodore Schroeder
Obscenity comes from grime. -- Christopher Hitchens
Obscenity, who really cares. Propaganda, all is phony. -- Bob Dylan
Obscenity is a cleansing process, whereas pornography only adds to the murk. -- Henry Miller
It's true that obscenity is a matter of taste and in the eye of the beholder. -- Christopher Hitchens
Obscenity is a notable enhancer of life and is suppressed at grave peril to the arts. -- Brendan Gill
Obscenity only comes in when the mind despises and fears the body, and the body hates and resists the mind. -- D. H. Lawrence
I don't know how one actually would define obscenity. I'm sure the definition is different according to the age one is living in. -- Jane Alexander
You have to show violence the way it is. If you don't show it realistically, then that's immoral and harmful. If you don't upset people, then that's obscenity. -- Roman Polanski
The world today is so full of violence, obscenity, war, the failure of political systems. I try to make movies that make people a bit more confident. But that doesn't mean being sugary. -- Rouben Mamoulian
The nowadays ruling that no word is unprintable has, I think, done nothing whatever for beautiful letters. ... Obscenity is too valuable a commodity to chuck around all over the place; it should be taken out of the safe on special occasions only. -- Dorothy Parker
What good is an obscenity trial except to popularize literature? -- Rex Stout
The sign of a Philistine age is the cry of immorality against art. -- Oscar Wilde
The justices have constitutionally protected obscenity in libraries, filth over cable television, and now unlimited internet pornography. -- Phyllis Schlafly
Slavery is an obscenity. It is not just stealing someone's labor; it is the theft of an entire life. -- Kevin Bales
Sex and obscenity are not synonymous. Obscene material is material which deals with sex in a manner appealing to prurient interest. -- William J. Brennan, Jr.
The violence and obscenity are left unadulterated, as manifestation of the mystery and pain which ever accompanies the act of creation. -- Anais Nin
I had woven a tapestry of obscenity that as far as I know is still hanging in space over Lake Michigan. -- Jean Shepherd
Since obscenity is the truth of our passion today, it is the only stuff of art -- or almost the only stuff. -- D. H. Lawrence
The Bible has noble poetry in it... and some good morals and a wealth of obscenity, and upwards of a thousand lies. -- Mark Twain
The ultimate obscenity is not caring, not doing something about what you feel, not feeling! Just drawing back and drawing in; becoming narcissistic. -- Rod Serling
Some of the comments on YouTube make you weep for the future of humanity just for the spelling alone, never mind the obscenity and the naked hatred. -- Lev Grossman
People are obscenities. Would rather be music than be a mass of tubes squeezing semisolids around itself for a few decades before becoming so dribblesome it'll no longer function. -- David Mitchell
Indecency, vulgarity, obscenity - these are strictly confined to man; he invented them. Among the higher animals there is no trace of them. They hide nothing. They are not ashamed. -- Mark Twain
Of all the strange 'crimes' that human beings have legislated out of nothing, 'blasphemy' is the most amazing -- with 'obscenity' and 'indecent exposure' fighting it out for second and third place. -- Robert A. Heinlein
Obscenities... I think a lot of dumb people do it because they can't think of what they want to say and they're frustrated. A lot of smart people do it to pretend they aren't very smart - want to be just one of the boys. -- Andy Rooney
War over water would be an ultimate obscenity. And yet, unfortunately it is conceivable... Water has been a source over so many years of erosion of confidence, of tension, of human rights abuses, really, of so many in areas whose traditional water supplies have been controlled and depleted by occupational authorities. That must stop if we're going to be able to develop a climate for peace. -- Queen Noor of Jordan
Commercial speech is like obscenity... we can't seem to define it, but we know it when we see it. -- Jef I. Richards
Sex and obscenity are not synonymous. Obscene material is material which deals with sex in a manner appealing to prurient interest. -- William J. Brennan, Jr.
Since obscenity is the truth of our passion today, it is the only stuff of art - or almost the only stuff. -- D. H. Lawrence
In 1973, the Supreme Court ruled that individual communities should set obscenity standards. Whenever a case is tried, it will be based on a community standard for that particular place. -- Larry Flynt
Politicians must set their aims for the high ground and according to our various leanings, Democratic, Republican, Independent, we will follow. Politicians must be told if they continue to sink into the mud of obscenity, they will proceed alone. -- Maya Angelou
Sex and obscenity are not synonymous. -- Lenny Bruce
What is obscenity? And to whom? -- Allen Ginsberg
(The National Cancer Program is) a bunch of (obscenity). -- James D. Watson
Western people often see obscenity where there is only symbolism. -- Sir John Woodroffe
Everybody says sex is obscene. The only true obscenity is war. -- Henry Miller
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The definition of obscenity on the newsstands should be extended to many hunting magazines. -- Wayne Pacelle
Parents, just keep in mind that kids will always round off to the nearest obscenity.. -- Ray Romano
History proves there is no better advertisement for a book than to condemn it for obscenity. -- Holbrook Jackson
That which attempts to elevate the ugly to the level of beauty becomes neither; but an obscenity. -- John Donne
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I am passionately opposed to the death penalty for anyone . . . I think, myself, that it is an obscenity . . . -- Desmond Tutu
profanity and obscenity entitle people who don't want unpleasant information to close their ears and eyes to you. -- Kurt Vonnegut
This [fundamentalism] is not religion. It is obscenity. These are lies, the criminal use of religious power to misguide people. -- Anwar Sadat
There follows a little obscenity here, a dash of philosophy there, considerable whining overall, and a modern satirical novel is born. -- Renata Adler
It showed a kind of obscenity you see only in nature, an obscenity so extreme that it dissolves imperceptibly into beauty. -- Richard Preston
The ultimate obscenity is not caring, not doing something about what you feel, not feeling! Just drawing back and drawing in, becoming narcissistic. -- Rod Serling
Justice precedes beauty. Without justice, beauty is impossible, an obscenity. And when beauty has gone, what does a cameraman do with his eye? -- Tony Kushner
The problem is that censors create the concept of obscenity. By supposedly trying to protect us they form an absurd concept of what is obscene. -- Catherine Breillat
The greatest issue is to raise the question of birth control out of the gutter of obscenity ... into the light of intelligence and human understanding. -- Margaret Sanger
I start at the beginning, mentally screaming every obscenity I can in alphabetical order. Then I start setting them to the tune of "Row, Row, Row Your Boat -- Kiersten White
In other words, [ H.P. Lovecraft] was areligious, asexual, neurasthenic, he just didn't want to react to the world. Like Virginia Woolf, who considered religion the ultimate obscenity. -- Paul Laffoley
Pornography and obscenity...work by specialism and fragmentation. They deal with a figure without a ground -- situations in which the human factor is suppressed in favor of sensations and kicks. -- Marshall McLuhan
... Corellian curses being a synergistic blend of vulgarity, obscenity, and outright blasphemy that were the only things really worth saying when one was in the middle of being blown to monatomic dust. -- Matthew Woodring Stover
The daily lesson of slum life, visualised, reiterated, of low standards, vile living, obscenity, profanity, impurity, is bound tobe dwarfing and debasing to the children who are in the midst of it. -- Albion Fellows Bacon
The whole problem with this idea of obscenity and indecency, and all of these things - bad language and whatever - it's all caused by one basic thing, and that is: religious superstition. -- George Carlin
Where no paths exist, a man strays only when he misses his destination. There is no crime, no transgression, no sin save foolishness or incompetence, and no obscenity save the tyranny of custom. -- R. Scott Bakker
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The function of the West is to turn bodies and minds into products. It cannot understand that the rest of the world holds this to be an obscenity, a corruption of our nirvanic nature. -- John Burdett
I don't want a moratorium on the death penalty. I want the abolition of it. I can't understand why a country [USA] that's so committed to human rights doesn't find the death penalty an obscenity. -- Desmond Tutu
We who have witnessed the obscenity of war and experienced its horror and terrible consequences have an obligation to rise above our pain and suffering and turn the tragedy of our lives into a triumph. -- Ron Kovic
And I think there's something about conservatives frankly - and the Left, when it comes to their channels of persuasion, are unpersuasive. They are, most of them are hate-filled, obscenity-clogged rants of anger and hatred. -- Karl Rove

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