Some people think luxury is the opposite of poverty. It is not. It is the opposite of vulgarity.
To endeavor to work upon the vulgar with fine sense is like attempting to hew blocks with a razor.
By vulgarity I mean that vice of civilization which makes man ashamed of himself and his next of kin, and pretend to be somebody else.
Very notable was his distinction between coarseness and vulgarity, coarseness, revealing something; vulgarity, concealing something.
Expressions of disapproval are on a level of vulgarity that cannot be tolerated. The way to express disapproval is to do without applause.
I've been accused of vulgarity. I say that's bullshit.
There are no people who are quite so vulgar as the over-refined.
Death and vulgarity are the only two facts in the nineteenth century that one cannot explain away.
I think that what most surprises anybody who goes into politics from even a modestly cerebral background is the vulgarity of much of the cut and thrust of politics.
In some sort of crude sense, which no vulgarity, no humor, no overstatement can quite extinguish, the physicists have known sin; and this is a knowledge which they cannot lose.
The vulgar man is always the most distinguished, for the very desire to be distinguished is vulgar.
The physicists have known sin; and this is a knowledge which they cannot lose.
Nothing is more exhilarating than philistine vulgarity.
A thing is not vulgar merely because it is common.
It is an immense loss to have all robust and sustaining expletives refined away from one! At. moments of trial refinement is a feeble reed to lean upon.
The undressed is vulgar; the nude is pure, and the well-dressed tainted.
Despite the vision and farseeing wisdom of our wartime heads of state, the physicists have felt the peculiarly intimate responsibility for suggesting, for supporting, and in the end, in large measure, for achieving the realization of atomic weapons. Nor can we forget that these weapons as they were in fact used dramatized so mercilessly the inhumanity and evil of modern war. In some sort of crude sense which no vulgarity, no humor, no overstatement can quite extinguish, the physicists have known sin; and this is a knowledge which they cannot lose.
There is a real vulgarity in the way women dress at the moment. They show off too much and try too hard. They don't understand where the line is between sexy and vulgar. I know where that line is.
There is a point in portraying surface vulgarity where tragedy and comedy are very close.
Vulgarity is, in reality, nothing but a modern, chic, pert descendant of the goddess Dullness.
or simply:
