Lenny Bruce

"Hope without action is just wishful thinking."

"The world doesn't need more rules; it needs more conscience."

"Every moment is an opportunity to be different."

"The real enemy is not outside us—it's our own fear."

"Success is measured by how many people you lifted up, not knocked down."

"The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that very existence of that world is a complete lie."

"I'm not a comedian. I'm Lenny Bruce."

"The sick comic is the only one who tells the truth."

"If you believe in God, He will forgive you. If you don't believe in God, He will understand."

"The real obscenity is not the words we use but the world we live in."

"We're all obscene. We all do obscene things. The only difference is I'm honest about it."

"Communism is like one big phone company."

"Censorship is the height of moral cowardice."

"You can't make truth obscene. If you can, then your truth is not truth."

"The most exciting thing is not doing it. It's talking about it."

"I'm sick of guilt. I'm sick of the whole trip."

"If there's a hell, I'll see you there."

"My mother-in-law broke up my marriage. My wife went home to her, and as she was leaving, I said, 'I hope you break your neck.' I got two years for that."

"The liberals can understand everything but people who don't understand them."

"What is truth? It's whatever you can get away with."

"The reason I'm in this business, I assume all performers are, is Look at me, Ma."

"I would become a priest or a rabbi, but I'd have to give up my life of sin."

"They're giving my wife a hard time in Pomona for reading from my books in public. She's doing a beautiful thing."

"I want to perform for people who believe in what I do and come from a sense of generosity."

"I have no hatred for cops. Some of my best friends are fascists."

"Religious people are upset by my saying what the Bible says."

"Obscenity is a cleansing process. Whenever we expose obscenity, we're cleaning up."

"There are no dirty words. Only dirty minds."

"The judge said I was using vile language. I said, Judge, when you're talking about a vile situation, you have to use vile language."

"It's the suppression that makes it dirty."