vulgarity

It is by discourse that men associate; and words are imposed according to the apprehension of the vulgar. And therefore the ill and unfit choice of words wonderfully obsesses the understanding. Nor do the definitions or explanations, wherewith in some things learned men are wont to guard and defend themselves, by any means set the matter right. But words plainly force and overrule the understanding, and throw all into confusion, and lead men away into innumerable and inane controversies and fancies.

People who knowingly select movies and television programs featuring foul language deserve exactly what they get. . . . Many people will wonder why governments that are clever enough to devise ways to shield children from the dangers of prayer in the classroom should not be clever enough to shield them from the evils of vulgarity in entertainment.

A gentleman considers what is right; The vulgar consider what will pay.

Fly not yet; 't is just the hour When pleasure, like the midnight flower That scorns the eye of vulgar light, Begins to bloom for sons of night And maids who love the moon.

He that departs with his own honesty For Vulgar , doth it too dearly buy.

All your life, you have heard yourself denounced; not for your faults, but for your greatest virtues. You have been hated, not for your mistakes, but for your achievements. You have been scorned for all those qualities of character which are your highest pride. You have been called selfish for the courage of acting on your own judgment and bearing sole responsibility for your own life. You have been called arrogant for your independent mind. You have been called cruel for your unyielding integrity. You have been called anti-social for the vision that made you venture upon undiscovered roads. You have been called ruthless for the strength and self-discipline of your drive to your purpose. You have been called greedy for the magnificence of your power to create wealth. You, who've expended an inconceivable flow of energy, have been called a parasite. You, who've created abundance where there had been nothing but wastelands and helpless, starving men before you, have been called a robber. You, who've kept them all alive, have been called an exploiter. You, the purest and most moral man among them, have been sneered at as a 'vulgar materialist.' Have you stopped to ask them: by what right? - by what code? - by what standard?

A democracy is a government in the hands of men of low birth, no property, and vulgar employments.

You have all the characteristics of a popular politician: a horrible voice, bad breeding, and a vulgar manner.

MUMMY, n. An ancient Egyptian . . . handy, too, in museums in gratifying the vulgar curiosity that serves to distinguish man from the lower animals.

True courage is not the brutal force of vulgar heroes, but the firm resolve of virtue and reason.