vulgar quotes

Learned men†do many times fail to observe decency and discretion in their behaviour and carriage, so as the vulgar sort of capacities do make a judgment of them in greater matters by that which they find them wanting in smaller. 46

- Francis,Viscount St Albans Bacon
  The Advancement of Learning, bk.1.

Father is rather vulgar, my dear. The word Papa, besides, gives a pretty form to the lips.Papa, potatoes, poultry, prunes, and prism, are all very good words for the lips: especially prunes and prism.

- CharlesJohn Huffam Dickens
^7  Mrs General. Little Dorrit, bk.2, ch.5.

Moderate sorrow Fits vulgar love, and for a vulgar man: But I have lov'd with such transcendent passion, I soar'd, at first, quite out of reason's view, And now am lost above it.

-John Dryden
  All for Love, or The World Well Lost, act 2.

Funny without being vulgar.

- Sir W(illiam) S(chwenck) Gilbert
  Of Sir Henry Beerbohm Tree's performance as Hamlet. Attributed.

All except the best men would rather be called wicked than vulgar.

- C(live) S(taples) Lewis
Quoted in The Guardian, 21  Aug1980.

Le sie'  cle s'encanaille furieusement. Our times have become vulgar.

-Jean Baptiste Poquelin Molie'  re
  La critique de l'EŁ   cole des femmes, sc.6.

To endeavour to work upon the vulgar with fine sense, is like attempting to hew blocks with a razor.

- Alexander Pope
  Miscellanies,'Thoughts onVarious Subjects', vol.2.

'Whoever has opened the window has opened it too wide,'said Miss Brodie.'Six inches isperfectlyadequate. More is vulgar.'

- Dame Muriel Sarah ne  e  Camberg Spark
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, ch.3.

Hissensuality has all drifted intosexual vanity, delight for being the candletothemoths, with a dash of intellectual curiosity to give flavour to his tickled vanity† His incompleteness as a thinker, his shallow and vulgar view of many human relationshipsthe lack of a sterner kind of humour which would show him the dreariness of his farce and the total absence of proportion and inadequateness in some of his ideasall these defects came largely from the flippant and worthless self- complacency brought about by the worship of rather second-rate women.

- (Martha) Beatrice ne  e Potter Webb
  Of George Bernard Shaw. Diary entry, 8 May.

It is very vulgar to talk like a dentist when one isn't a dentist. It produces a false impression.

- Oscar Fingal O'FlahertieWills Wilde
  Jack.The Importance of Being Earnest, act1.

I can't stand a naked light bulb, any more than I can a rude remark or a vulgar action.

-TennesseeThomas Lanier Williams
  Blanche. A Streetcar Named Desire, sc.3