A Quote by William Rehnquist
I may not be able to define pornography but I know it when I see it.
Quote Topics
Quote Author
Related Quotes
Whether my acting was obscene, or whether it was distasteful, well, Judge Rehnquist, who just recently passed away couldn't define pornography. His comment on pornography was, "I may not be able to define it but I know it when I see it." That's not law. That's definitely not law. Really, this trial should have been an organized crime trial. About murder and tax evasion and brutalizing people. Not about obscenity.
Intelligence is like pornography. I can't define it, but I know if when I see it.
Attempting to define science fiction is an undertaking almost as difficult, though not so popular, as trying to define pornography... In both pornography and SF, the problem lies in knowing exactly where to draw the line.
Political pornography is not unlike the sexual kind: difficult to define, but you know it when you see it
I shall not attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description (of pornography), and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that.
For example, I'm a great fan of pornography, but I don't see any reason not to restrict it so that people walking down the street who hate pornography don't have full color pictures outside of movie theaters. Let them be in a different district. I'm kidding about pornography, but you get the point.
Pornography is pornography, what is there to see? Movies are attempting to destroy something that's supposed to be the most beautiful thing a man and a woman can have by making it cheap and common. It's what you don't see that's attractive.
Like art, love, and pornography, noir is hard to define, but you know it when you see it. For the purposes of the book and my longtime working understanding and definition of it, noir stories are bleak, existential, alienated, pessimistic tales about losers--people who are so morally challenged that they cannot help but bring about their own ruin.
You may find somebody refreshing until they drop the N-word on you and then you're no longer feeling refreshed, you're just feeling offended. And where we draw that line as a society is sort of akin to what the Supreme Court said on pornography, you know, you know it when you see it. And it's different for each person.
Meaning is like pornography, you know it when you see it.
While the Obama Department of Justice seems to favor pornographers over children and families, that will change under a Satorum Administration. I will ban all pornography. Especially gay pornography. Gay pornography is the reason people choose the gay lifestyle or what I call the deathstyle. If we got rid of that, homosexuality would be gone within a matter of months. This is one of only a few things I see eye to eye on with the Taliban.
Pornography is about images that are repeated, saturated. Images of the human body, not nature. What I find in pornography is precisely the repetition of the same: the clichés of pornography. There can be no real transgression, just an image that repeats itself.
[Jazz singing] is like pornography. You can't say what it is, but you know it when you see it.
I'll defend child pornography, how about that? What's wrong with seeing some child pornography? What if you watch child pornography because you find it hilarious? Then should it not a protected freedom of speech?
If my work is pornography, so what? I don't have any moral compunction about pornography. Any feelings I have about it are purely stylistic... I don't see why it should be excluded as a serious subject.
The plague of pornography is swirling about us as never before. Pornography brings a vicious wake of immorality, broken homes, and broken lives. Pornography will sap spiritual strength to endure. Pornography is much like quicksand. You can become so easily trapped and overcome as soon as you step into it that you do not realize the severe danger. Most likely you will need assistance to get out of the quicksand of pornography. But how much better it is never to step into it. I plead with you to be careful and cautious.
Related Authors
Antonin Scalia Quotes
American
Judge
Brett Kavanaugh Quotes
American
Judge
Clarence Thomas Quotes
American
Judge
Earl Warren Quotes
American
Judge
Felix Frankfurter Quotes
American
Judge
Hugo Black Quotes
American
Judge
Learned Hand Quotes
American
Judge
Louis D. Brandeis Quotes
American
Judge
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. Quotes
American
Judge
Robert Rinder Quotes
English
Judge
Ruth Bader Ginsburg Quotes
American
Judge
Samuel Alito Quotes
American
Judge
Sandra Day O'Connor Quotes
American
Judge
Sonia Sotomayor Quotes
American
Judge
Thurgood Marshall Quotes
American
Judge
William O. Douglas Quotes
American
Judge