Profane Quotes

• We live, after all, in a world where illusions are sacred and truth profane.

  Tariq Ali

  World, Sacred, Illusion

  "For one day only, I'm a Lib Dem". www.theguardian.com. March 26, 2005.

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• There are more sure marks of authenticity in the Bible than in any profane history.

  Isaac Newton

  Bible, Biblical, Science

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• Profaneness is a brutal vice. He who indulges in it is no gentleman.

  Edwin Hubbel Chapin

  Indulge In, Gentleman, Vices

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• Art is permitted to survive only if it renounces the right to be different, and integrates itself into the omnipotent realm of the profane.

  Theodor Adorno

  Art, Survival, Different

  Theodor W. Adorno (1982). “Prisms”, p.132, MIT Press

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• How the holy and the profane mix in the light of day and at the end of life is sometimes the most beautiful thing in this world and a compassionate entry into the next. After failure and defeat, a concentration upon certain beauties, though forever lost and unretrievable, can lift the wounded past roundedness and the dying past dying, protecting them with an image, still and bright, that will ride with them on their long ride, never to fade and never to retreat.

  Mark Helprin

  Beautiful, Past, Light

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• Under certain circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer.

  Mark Twain

  Atheist, Prayer, Book

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• The foolish and wicked practice of profane cursing and swearing...is a vice so mean and low, without any temptation, that every man of sense and character detests and despises it.

  George Washington

  4th Of July, Character, Mean

  "American Masonic Register and Literary Companion", Volume 1, (p. 163), 1829.

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• Hardly a name in profane history is more august than his. Hardly another character in the world's record has made so little of its opportunities. His discovery was a blunder; his blunder was a new world; the New World is his monument.

  Justin Winsor

  Character, Opportunity, Discovery

  Justin Winsor (1891). “Christopher Columbus and how He Received and Imparted the Spirit of Discovery”

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• Grace me no grace, nor uncle me no uncle;
  I am no traitor's uncle, and that word "grace"
  In an ungracious mouth is but profane.

  William Shakespeare

  Uncles, Grace, Mouths

  William Shakespeare, Joseph Dennie, Isaac Reed, Samuel Johnson, George Steevens (1806). “The plays of William Shakespeare: With the corrections and illustrations of various commentators”, p.64

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• It is hereby decreed that the wall separating the sacred and the profane be toen down. From now on everything is sacred.

  Paulo Coelho

  Wall, Inspiration, Words Of Wisdom

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• No facts are to me sacred; none are profane; I simply experiment, an endless seeker, with no past at my back.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Past, Sacred, Facts

  Essays Circles (p. 297)

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• Nowadays the rage for possession has got to such a pitch that there is nothing in the realm of nature, whether sacred or profane, out of which profit cannot be squeezed.

  Desiderius Erasmus

  Sacred, Rage, Profit

  Desiderius Erasmus, Margaret Mann Phillips (1967). “Erasmus on His Times: A Shortened Version of the 'Adages' of Erasmus”, p.45, Cambridge University Press

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• Every science is a profane restatement of the preceding dogmas of the religious period

  Francis Parker Yockey

  Religious, Science, Dogma

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• If I profane with my unworthiest hand
  This holy shrine, the gentle fine is this:
  My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand
  To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.

  William Shakespeare

  Kissing, Hands, Two

  William Shakespeare (2007). “Romeo and Juliet”, p.46, Filiquarian Publishing, LLC.

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• Night is certainly more novel and less profane than day.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Valentines Day, Night, Literature

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.1258, Delphi Classics

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• I've tried to reduce profanity but I reduced so much profanity when writing the book that I'm afraid not much could come out. Perhaps we will have to consider it simply as a profane book and hope that the next book will be less profane or perhaps more sacred.

  Ernest Hemingway

  Book, Writing, Sacred

  Ernest Hemingway, Carlos Baker (2003). “Ernest Hemingway Selected Letters 1917-1961”, p.213, Simon and Schuster

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• The secret thoughts of a man run over all things, holy, profane, clean, obscene, grave, and light, without shame or blame.

  Thomas Hobbes

  Running, Men, Ideas

  Thomas Hobbes (2008). “Leviathan: Or the Matter, Forme, and Power of a Commonwealth Ecclesiasticall and Civil”, p.52, Simon and Schuster

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• Half of the secular unrest and dismal, profane sadness of modern society comes from the vain ideas that every man is bound to be a critic for life.

  Henry Van Dyke

  Sad, Men, Ideas

  Henry Van Dyke (2015). “Little Rivers”, p.26, eKitap Projesi

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• The phosphorous smell which is developed when electricity (to speak the profane language) is passing from the points of a conductor into air, or when lightning happens to fall upon some terrestrial object, or when water is electrolysed, has been engaging my attention the last couple of years, and induced me to make many attempts at clearing up that mysterious phenomenon. Though baffled for a long time, at last, I think, I have succeeded so far as to have got the clue which will lead to the discovery of the true cause of the smell in question.

  Christian Friedrich Schonbein

  Success, Couple, Fall

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• The present age ... prefers the sign to the thing signified, the copy to the original, fancy to reality, the appearance to the essence ... for in these days illusion only is sacred, truth profane.

  Ludwig Feuerbach

  Reality, Essence, Atheism

  Ludwig Feuerbach (2012). “The Essence of Christianity”, p.12, Courier Corporation

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• It is incumbent upon us to understand our greatness and believe in it so that we do not cheapen and profane ourselves.

  Meir Kahane

  Life, Believe, Greatness

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• When poets - write about food it is usually celebratory. Food as the thing-in-itself, but also the thoughtful preparation of meals, the serving of meals, meals communally shared: a sense of the sacred in the profane.

  Joyce Carol Oates

  Writing, Thoughtful, Preparation

  Joyce Carol Oates (1989). “(Woman) writer: occasions and opportunities”, Plume

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• I'm always trying to reach a transcendent point, a romantic point, but reach it in a really unconventional way, a really profane way. To get to that romantic, touching, heartbreaking place, but through a lot of acts of profanity.

  Chuck Palahniuk

  Always Trying, Touching, Heartbreaking

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• The devil tempts men through their ambition, their cupidity, or their appetite, until he comes to the profane swearer, whom he clutches without any reward.

  Horace Mann

  Ambition, Men, Devil

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• No facts to me are sacred; none are profane.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Sacred, Facts

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