indecent quotes

I do not like subversion or disloyalty in any form and if I had ever seen any I would have considered it my duty to have reported it to the proper authorities.But to hurt innocent people whom I knew many years ago in order to save myself is to me inhuman and indecent and dishonorable.

- Lillian Florence Hellman
  Letter to  John S  Wood,19 May, on being asked to give information for the McCarthy trials. Collected in US Congress Committee Hearing on Un- American  Activities (1952), pt.8.

The same costume will be Indecent†10 years before its time Shameless†5 years before its time Outre   (daring)†1year before its time Smart Dowdy†1year after its time Hideous†10 years after its time Ridiculous†20 years after its time Amusing†30 years after its time Quaint†50 years after its time Charming†70 years after its time Romantic†100 years after its time Beautiful†150 years after its time.

-James Laver
  Taste and Fashion, ch.18.

My brothers and sister and I were brought up in an atmosphere which I would describe as 'Puritan decadence'. Puritanism names the behaviour which is condemned; Puritan decadence regards the name itself as indecent, and pretends that the object behind that name does not exist until it is named.

- Sir Stephen Harold Spender
World withinWorld, p.314^15.

   I expect you'll be becoming a schoolmaster, sir. That's what most of the gentlemen does, sir, that gets sent down for indecent behaviour.

- Evelyn Arthur StJohn Waugh
  Decline and Fall, Prelude.

It requires one to assume such indecent postures.

- Oscar Fingal O'FlahertieWills Wilde
His reason for not playing cricket. Quoted in Bloomsbury Thematic Dictionary of Quotations (1988)