Ill deeds are doubled with an evil word; the sting of a reproach is the truth of it.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
Ay, ay, the best terms will grow obsolete: damns have had their day.
—Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751–1816) Irish-born British Playwright, Poet, Elected Rep
Whatever harsh criticisms may be passed on the construction of her sentences, she at least possesses that one touch of vulgarity that makes the whole world kin.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
A footman may swear; but he cannot swear like a lord. He can swear as often: but can he swear with equal delicacy, propriety, and judgment?
—Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) Irish Satirist
Nothing is a greater, or more fearful sacrilege than to prostitute the great name of God to the petulancy of an idle tongue.
—Jeremy Taylor
It comes to pass oft that a terrible oath, with a swaggering accent sharply twanged off, gives manhood more approbation than ever proof itself would have earned him.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
Vulgarity is the conduct of other people, just as falsehoods are the truths of other people.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
Profaneness is a brutal vice.—He who indulges in it is no gentleman.—I care not what his stamp may be in society, or what clothes he wears, or what culture he boasts.—Despite all his refinement, the light and habitual taking of God’s name in vain, betrays a coarse and brutal will.
—Edwin Hubbell Chapin (1814–80) American Preacher, Poet
My English text is chaste, and all licentious passages are left in the obscurity of a learned language.
—Edward Gibbon (1737–94) English Historian, Politician
A whoreson jackanapes must take me up for swearing; as if I borrowed mine oaths of him and might not spend them at my pleasure. When a gentleman is disposed to swear, it is not for any standers-by to curtail his oaths, ha?
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
Profanity is both an unreasonable and an unmanly sin, a violation alike of good taste and good morals; an offence against both man and God.—Some sins are productive of temporary profit or pleasure; but profaneness is productive of nothing unless it be shame on earth, and damnation in hell. It is the most gratuitous of all kinds of wickedness—a sort of pepper-corn acknowledgment of the sovereignty of the devil over those who indulge it.
—Tryon Edwards American Theologian
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 (1899–1961) American Author, Journalist, Short Story Writer
It’s only with great vulgarity that you can achieve real refinement, only out of bawdy that you can get tenderness.
—Lawrence Durrell (1912–90) British Biographer, Poet, Playwright, Novelist
Grant me some wild expressions, Heavens, or I shall burst.
—George Farquhar (1677–1707) Irish Dramatist
Obscenity is whatever happens to shock some elderly and ignorant magistrate.
—Bertrand A. Russell (1872–1970) British Philosopher, Mathematician, Social Critic
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 (1792–1822) English Poet, Dramatist, Essayist, Novelist
The sign of a Philistine age is the cry of immorality against art.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
Take not God’s name in vain; select a time when it will have effect.
—Ambrose Bierce (1842–1913) American Short-story Writer, Journalist
The foolish and wicked practice of profane cursing and swearing is a vice so mean and low that every person of sense and character detests and despises it.
—George Washington (1732–99) American Head of State, Military Leader
The devil tempts men through their ambition, their cupidity or their appetite, until he comes to the profane swearer, whom he catches without any bait or reward.
—Horace Mann (1796–1859) American Educator, Politician, Educationalist
Here is the piece. If you can’t say fornicate can you say copulate or if not that can you say co-habit?. If not that would have to say consummate I suppose. Use your own good taste and judgment.
—Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American Author, Journalist, Short Story Writer
Profit or pleasure there is none in swearing, nor anything in men’s natural tempers to incite them to it. For though some men pour out oaths so freely, as if they came naturally from them, yet surely no man is born of a swearing constitution.
—John Tillotson
To endeavor to work upon the vulgar with fine sense is like attempting to hew blocks with a razor.
—Alexander Pope (1688–1744) English Poet
Vulgarity is, in reality, nothing but a modern, chic, pert descendant of the goddess Dullness.
—Edith Sitwell (1887–1964) British Poet, Literary Critic
The higher a man stands, the more the word “vulgar” becomes unintelligible to him.
—John Ruskin (1819–1900) English Writer, Art Critic
Ethelberta breathed a sort of exclamation, not right out, but stealthily, like a parson’s damn.
—Thomas Hardy (1840–1928) English Novelist, Poet
Obscenity is a cleansing process, whereas pornography only adds to the murk.
—Henry Miller (1891–1980) American Novelist
Not when truth is dirty, but when it is shallow, does the enlightened man dislike to wade into its waters.
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German Philosopher, Scholar, Writer
There are no people who are quite so vulgar as the over-refined.
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
Oaths are the fossils of piety.
—George Santayana (1863–1952) Spanish-American Poet, Philosopher