Bertrand Russell Quotes

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.

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

Obscenity comes from grime.

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.

Sex and obscenity are not synonymous.

My definition of cursing is probably different from what other people's definitions are.

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

Oh, by the way, I tend to use a lot of profanities. I do that for a reason: I like it.

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

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.

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

I've never understood the use of vulgar language, but the definition of 'risque' is open to interpretation. I suppose I did many things in my shows that could be considered risque... at the time... right up until my 90s.

I'm always interested in what is seen as obscene or profane or unfit.

Sex and obscenity are not synonymous.

If I'm gonna get my balls blown off for a word, my word is "poontang".

But I could never make a judgement that something was obscene.

I shall not attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description (of pornography), and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that.

I've always been criticised for how filthy my material is. Victoria Wood said to me once, 'I wish I was a bit ruder, like you,' and I said, 'Well, I wish I was a bit cleaner, like you.'

Censors can make a case for zero tolerance in language. They can make the argument that since we don't allow our children to use that language in schools, we also shouldn't give them stories in which it is used.

The next thing I would mention, and warn you against, is profaneness. This you know is forbidden by God.

I don't like cursing in movies. I feel like cursing has become the new hackiness. You try to find substitutions for cursing.

I think Australians like a bit of vulgarity.

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