University of Virginia Library

OBSCENITY...

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

— Bertrand Russell

Obscenity and witches
exist only in the minds and
emotions of those who
believe in them, and neither
dogmatic judicial dictum nor
righteous vituperation can
ever give to them any
objective existence.

— Theodore Schroeder

I know that the wiser sort
of men will consider, and I
wish that the ignorant sort
would learn, how it is not the
baseness or homeliness,
whether of words or matters,
that makes them foul and
obscene, but their base
minds, filthy conceits, or
lewd intents that handle
them.

— Sir John Harrington

So we can dismiss the idea
that sex appeal in art is
pornography. It may be so to
the grey Puritan, but the grey
Puritan is a sick man, soul
and body sick, so why should
we bother about his
hallucinations?

— D. H. Lawrence