Obscenity Quotes - Page 4

• 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

  Issues, Light, Understanding

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• Man was the outlaw, the rebel, the distorted shape that scarred the earth, the voice that silenced the music of Eden, the hand that raised up obscenities and blasphemies. Man was the pariah-dog, the moral leper in this translucent mirror of Heaven. He was the muddier of crystal waters, the despoiler of forests, the murderer of the innocent, the challenger against God. He was the assassin of the saints and the prophets, for they spoke of what he WOULD NOT HEAR, in the darkness of his spirit!

  Taylor Caldwell

  Dog, Men, Voice

  Taylor Caldwell (2017). “Great Lion of God: A Novel About Saint Paul”, p.17, Open Road Media

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• It's deeply rooted in the American psyche. Black men have always been viewed as the other, which leads to a different application of the laws. The current laws are an obscenity. More black men are locked up for using pot than white folk are for far more serious crimes.

  Marian Wright Edelman

  Men, Law, White

  "The Lenny Interview: Marian Wright Edelman". Interview with Jurnee Smollett-bell, www.lennyletter.com. April 8, 2016.

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• 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. Pbscene is not the picture of a naked woman who exposes her pubic hair but that of a fully clad general who exposes his medals rewarded in a war of aggression; obscene is not the ritual of the Hippies but the declaration of a high dignitary of the Church that war is necessary for peace.

  Herbert Marcuse

  War, Hippie, Hair

  Herbert Marcuse (1971). “An Essay on Liberation”, p.8, Beacon Press

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• The Bible is full of interest. It has noble poetry in it; and some clever fables; and some blood-drenched history; and some good morals; and a wealth of obscenity; and upwards of a thousand lies. This Bible is built mainly out of fragments of older Bibles that had their day and crumbled to ruin. So it noticeably lacks in originality, necessarily. Its three or four most imposing and impressive events all happened in earlier Bibles; there are only two new things in it: hell, for one, and that singular heaven I have told you about.

  Mark Twain

  Clever, Lying, Blood

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• When silence or tricks of language contribute to maintaining an abuse that must be reformed or a suffering that can be relieved, then there is no other solution but to speak out and show the obscenity hidden under the verbal cloak.

  Albert Camus

  Speaks Out, Silence, Abuse

  Albert Camus (2012). “Resistance, Rebellion, and Death: Essays”, p.177, Vintage

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• Anger has become one of the trendiest emotions of all.  In moderation it can be a righteous force for constructive change.  But its hackneyed omnipresence means the vast majority of its outbreaks are trivial.  The paucity of colorful obscenities is aggravated by an abundance of frivolous fury.

  Rob Brezsny

  Mean, Majority, Emotion

  Rob Brezsny (2005). “Pronoia Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings”, p.80, Frog Books

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• I'd heard that Lenny Bruce used a lot of profanity and obscenities in his act, and I was curious.

  Sheldon Harnick

  Curious, Used, Profanity

  Source: www.npr.org

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• Berkshire's whole record has been achieved without paying one ounce of attention to the efficient market theory in its hard form. And not one ounce of attention to the descendants of that idea, which came out of academic economics and went into corporate finance and morphed into such obscenities as the capital asset pricing model, which we also paid no attention to. I think you'd have to believe in the tooth fairy to believe that you could easily outperform the market by seven-percentage points per annum just by investing in high volatility stocks.

  Charlie Munger

  Believe, Thinking, Ideas

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• I'm against suppression of pornography. If you suppress guns - yes; if you want to suppress poverty - yes. These are the obscenities, the real brutalization of people. I am almost more outraged by ads for blue jeans or cars that sort of blatantly depict women not only as sex objects, but women that look younger than the age of consent, looking like they've just been raped or asking to be raped-utterly passive sex objects.

  Betty Friedan

  Sex, Real, Gun

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• There are some varieties of fiction that I never touch - mystery stories, for instance, which I abhor, and historical novels. I also detest the so-called "powerful" novel - full of commonplace obscenities and torrents of dialog.

  Vladimir Nabokov

  Powerful, Historical Novels, Fiction

  Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov (1973). “Strong opinions”, McGraw-Hill Companies

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• This [fundamentalism] is not religion. It is obscenity. These are lies, the criminal use of religious power to misguide people.

  Anwar Sadat

  Religious, Lying, People

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• 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

  Trying, Problem, Absurd

  "The joy of sex" by Libby Brooks, www.theguardian.com. November 22, 2001.

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• What is obscenity? And to whom?

  Allen Ginsberg

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• Parents, just keep in mind that kids will always round off to the nearest obscenity.

  Ray Romano

  Funny, Baby, Children

  Ray Romano (1999). “Everything and a Kite”, Bantam

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• A: There is no grand scheme of things. B: If there were a grand scheme of things, the fact – the fact – that we are not equipped to perceive it, either by natural or supernatural means, is a nightmarish obscenity. C: The very notion of a grand scheme of things is a nightmarish obscenity.

  Thomas Ligotti

  Mean, Facts, Natural

  Thomas Ligotti (2011). “My Work Is Not Yet Done”, p.14, Random House

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• The most important truths always appear first as blasphemies or obscenities. That's why every great innovator is persecuted. And the sacraments look obscene, too, to an outsider. The eucharist is just sublimated cannibalism, to the unawakened. When the Pope kisses the feet of the laity, he looks like an old toe-queen to some people. The rites of Pan look like a suburban orgy.

  Robert Anton Wilson

  Queens, Kissing, Feet

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• History proves there is no better advertisement for a book than to condemn it for obscenity.

  Holbrook Jackson

  Book, Prove, Advertisements

  Holbrook Jackson (1932). “The Fear of Books”, p.34, University of Illinois Press

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• There is something powerful in the whispering of obscenities, about those in power. There's something delightful about it, something naughty, secretive, forbidden, thrilling. It's like a spell, of sorts. It deflates them, reduces them to the common denominator where they can be dealt.

  Margaret Atwood

  Powerful, Naughty, Whispering

  FaceBook post by Margaret Atwood from Jan 26, 2012

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• Even a mentally challenged shark would figure out that sea turtles did not wear boxer shorts printed in flying piggies, and no sea turtle would be yattering streams of obscenities between chain-smoker gasps of breath.

  Christopher Moore

  Turtles, Sharks, Sea

  Christopher Moore (2009). “Island Of The Sequined Love Nun: A Novel”, p.173, Hachette UK

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• Remember that the Tarot is a great and sacred arcanum - its abuse is an obscenity in the inner and a folly in the outer. It is intended for quite other purposes than to determine when the tall dark man will meet the fair rich widow.

  Jack Parsons

  Dark, Men, Abuse

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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

  Mind, World, Body

  John Burdett (2012). “Bangkok Haunts”, p.156, Hachette UK

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• ... though not invariably the worst choice, war is always an obscene horror.

  Ellen Glasgow

  War, Choices, Horror

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• In the drawing room [of the Queen's palace] hung a Venus and Cupid by Michaelangelo, in which, instead of a bit of drapery, the painter has placed Cupid's foot between Venus's thighs. Queen Caroline asked General Guise, an old connoisseur, if it was not a very fine piece? He replied "Madam, the painter was a fool, for he has placed the foot where the hand should be.

  Horace Walpole

  Queens, Hands, Drawing

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• 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

  Order, Tunes, Boat

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