“Obscenity, the open use of which used to be a mark of lower social strata, has somehow become acceptable in everyday conversation for everyday people…And yet, I am offended—not out of a sense of morality or of prudishness—but because foul language used casually in public comes close to the idea of a violation of privacy. I know that there are some around who feel assaulted by hearing it. I chose that word very carefully; certain language is an assault on the senses…Those who disagree are probably saying, ‘after all, it’s only words.’ But words are vehicles; they convey messages. And to some people, the message of profanity is a message of ugliness and aggressiveness and a disrespect for civil behavior…Bathroom and sexual obscenities can now be heard in certain popular songs on the radio, and even some magazines and newspapers have begun to print language that would have been unthinkable five years ago. This practice is usually defended under the name of ‘freedom.’ But whose freedom is it? If the language of ugliness becomes so much a part of our society that it is impossible to escape no matter where one turns, then who is free and who isn’t?”

Bob Green | Hear Pollution

Topics: Profanity

“The height of a man’s success is gauged by his self-mastery; the depth of his failure by his self-abandonment. There is no other limitation in either direction. And this law is the expression of eternal justice. He who cannot establish a dominion over himself will have no dominion over others, he who masters himself shall be king.”

Spencer W. Kimball | Improvement Era, June 1966, p. 525.

Topics: Profanity, Self-mastery

“Sloppy language and sloppy ways go together. Those who are truly educated have learned more than the sciences, the humanities, law, engineering, and the arts. They carry with them a certain polish that marks them as loving the better qualities of life, a culture that adds luster to the mundane world of which they are apart, a patina that puts a quiet glow on what otherwise might be base metal.”

Gordon B. Hinckley | Stand a Little Taller

Topics: Education, Profanity

“Every time a business in the service industry creates a negative emotion in the mind of a customer or client, that individual will share his dissatisfaction with an average of ten people before the emotion dissipates. The same research shows that a person who is impressed with a service will share that positive emotion with an average of only three other people at most. Given this situation it’s obvious why negative news travels faster and farther than positive news.”

Dwight Chapin

Topics: Profanity

“Reverence is the soul of true religion. It’s seedbed is sincerity. Its quality is determined by the esteem in which one holds the object of his reverence as evidenced by his behavior toward that object. When that object is God, the genuinely reverent person has a worshipful adoration coupled with a respectful behavior toward him and all that pertains to him. The want of such appreciation or behavior smacks of irreverence. Order is a part of reverence. So is cleanliness of person, of apparel, of speech, of action, and of thought and impulse. So also are courtesy, respect for one another, and kindred virtues. Reverence is a sign of spiritual maturity, strength, and nobility.”

Marion G. Romney | Ensign, Oct. 1976, 2

Topics: Being Spiritual & Spirituality, Maturity, Profanity, Reverence

“An attitude of humility and decency in dress, grooming, language, and behavior.”

Elder M. Russell Ballard | True to the Faith

Topics: Modesty, Profanity

“No parent can consistently teach faith in Christ who profanes the name of Deity. Profanity is never heard in the well-ordered home. Swearing is a vice that bespeaks a low standard of breeding. Blasphemous exclamations drive out all spirit of reverence.”

David O. McKay | Gospel Ideals, Salt Lake City: Improvement Era, 1953, p. 420.

Topics: Profanity

“In that same spirit we speak to the sisters as well, for the sin of verbal abuse knows no gender. Wives, what of the unbridled tongue in your mouth, of the power for good or ill in your words? How is it that such a lovely voice which by divine nature is so angelic, so close to the veil, so instinctively gentle and inherently kind could ever in a turn be so shrill, so biting, so acrid and untamed? A woman’s words can be more piercing than any dagger ever forged, and they can drive the people they love to retreat beyond a barrier more distant than anyone in the beginning of that exchange could ever have imagined. Sisters, there is no place in that magnificent spirit of yours for acerbic or abrasive expression of any kind, including gossip or backbiting or catty remarks. Let it never be said of our home or our ward or our neighborhood that “the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity … [burning] among our members.” “In all of this, I suppose it goes without saying that negative speaking so often flows from negative thinking, including negative thinking about ourselves. We see our own faults, we speak – or at least think – critically of ourselves, and before long that is how we see everyone and everything. No sunshine, no roses, no promise of hope or happiness. Before long we and everybody around us are miserable.”

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland | “The Tongue of Angels,” Ensign, April 2007

Topics: Abuse, Profanity

“The General is sorry to be informed that the foolish and wicked practice of profane cursing and swearing, a vice heretofore little known in our American army, is growing into fashion. He hopes the officers will, by example as well as influence, endeavor to check it and that both they and the men will reflect that we can have little hope of the blessing of heaven on our arms if we insult it by our impropriety and folly. Added to this, it is a vice so mean and low, without any temptation, that every man of sense and character detests and despises it.”

George Washington

Topics: Profanity

Now I am told that racial slurs and denigrating remarks are sometimes heard among us. I remind you that no man who makes disparaging remarks concerning those of another race can consider himself a true disciple of Christ. Nor can he consider himself to be in harmony with the teachings of the Church of Christ.

Gordon B. Hinckley | Priesthood Session April 2006 General Conference

Topics: Profanity, Race & Racism

“Profanity is filthiness. A person is known as much by his language as he is by the company he keeps. … Filthiness in any form is degrading and soul-destroying and should be avoided.”

Joseph Fielding Smith | Doctrines of Salvation

Topics: Profanity