C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.
Profanity
Ill deeds are doubled with an evil word.
The loud type of vulgarity.
Immodest words admit of no defence.
To swear is neither brave, polite, nor wise.
When a gentleman is disposed to swear it is not for any standers-by to curtail his oaths.
Blasphemous words betray the vain foolishness of the speaker.
Most people who commit a sin count on some personal benefit to be derived therefrom, but profanity has not even this excuse.
Nothing is a greater sacrilege than to prostitute the great name of God to the petulancy of an idle tongue.
None so nearly disposed to scoffing at religion as those who have accustomed themselves to swear on trifling occasions.
Profaneness is a brutal vice. He who indulges in it is no gentleman, I care not what his stamp may be in society; I care not what clothes he wears, or what culture he boasts.
There are braying men in the world as well as braying asses; for what is loud and senseless talking and swearing any other than braying?
It is difficult to account for a practice which gratifies no passion and promotes no interest.
A single profane expression betrays a man’s low breeding.
The devil tempts men through their ambition, their cupidity, or their appetite, until he comes to the profane swearer, whom he clutches without ay reward.
For it comes to pass oft that a terrible oath, with a swaggering accent sharply twanged off, gives manhood more approbation than ever proof itself would have earned him.
Swearing is properly a superfluity of naughtiness, and can only be considered as a sort of pepper-corn rent, in acknowledgment of the devil’s right of superiority.
The foolish and wicked practice of profane cursing and swearing is a vice of mean and low that every person of sense and character detests and despises it.
From a common custom of swearing men easily slide into perjury; therefore, if thou wouldst not be perjured, do not use thyself to swear.
Of all the dark catalogue of sins there is not one more vile and execrable than profaneness. It commonly does, and loves to cluster with other sins; and he who can look up and insult his Maker to His face needs but little improvement in guilt to make him a finished devil.
Every one knows the veneration which was paid by the Jews to a name so great, wonderful, and holy. They would not let it enter even into their religious discourses. What can we then think of those who make use of so tremendous a name, in the ordinary expression of their anger, mirth, and most impertinent passions?