Damien Hirst Quotes

Sex and obscenity are not synonymous.

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.

I may not be able to define pornography but I know it when I see it.

Obscenity is whatever happens to shock some elderly and ignorant magistrate.

It's true that obscenity is a matter of taste and in the eye of the beholder.

Censorship feeds the dirty mind more than the four-letter word itself.

I don't think there's one thing I've ever said on the radio that would have been found indecent or obscene.

I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material but I know it when I see it.

I don't like swearing on the air. As a matter of fact, I'm not a prude, but... I watch HBO and some of the comedy stuff, and I'm constantly asking myself, 'Why have we gone there?' It seems like it's unfortunate. It's so cheap. It's so easy.

Certain things were deemed to be offensive. It was usually bad language.

Sex and obscenity are not synonymous.

It is obvious that "obscenity" is not a term capable of exact legal definition; in the practice of the Courts, it means "anything that shocks the magistrate.

The standard of what offends 'the common conscience of the community' conflicts ... with the command of the First Amendment. ... Certainly that standard would not be an acceptable one if religion, economics, politics or philosophy were involved. How does it become a constitutional standard when literature treating with sex is concerned? Any test that turns on what is offensive to the community's standards is too loose, too capricious, too destructive of freedom of expression to be squared with the First Amendment. Under that test, juries can censor, suppress, and punish what they don't like, provided the matter relates to 'sexual impurity' or has a tendency to 'excite lustful thoughts.' This is community censorship in one of its worst forms...

If the First Amendment guarantee of freedom of speech and press is to mean anything, it must allow protests even against the moral code that the standard of the day sets for the community.

If something is too risque, don't watch it.

I would never condone anything which I thought was salacious, titillating, or gratuitous.

profanity and obscenity entitle people who don't want unpleasant information to close their ears and eyes to you.

I'm not for gratuitous nudity, but if there's humor, I don't have a problem.

I seriously object to seeing on the screen what belongs in the bedroom.

Sodomy is in the Bible, to be read in churches. I wouldn't rule it out of Mr. Bruce's act if he cares to comment on it.

The First Amendment is not an altar on which we must sacrifice our children, families, and community standards. Obscene material that is not protected by the First Amendment can and must be prohibited.

Sex and obscenity are not synonymous. Obscene material is material which deals with sex in a manner appealing to prurient interest.

Implicit in the history of the 1st Amendment is the rejection of obscenity as utterly without redeeming social importance.

I do not want to see censorship, yet I don't believe a dime of taxpayer money should go into art that is clearly and visibly filth.

I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description [hard-core pornography]; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it