Leonard Alfred Schneider better known by his stage name Lenny Bruce, was an American stand-up comedian, social critic, and satirist. He was renowned for his open, free-style, and critical form of comedy which contained satire, politics, religion, sex, and vulgarity. His 1964 conviction in an obscenity trial was followed by a posthumous pardon, the first in the history of New York State, by Governor George Pataki in 2003. These Lenny Bruce quotes will motivate you.
Best Lenny Bruce Quotes
- “The American Constitution was not written to protect criminals; it was written to protect the government from becoming criminals.” ~ Lenny Bruce
- “I think it’s about time we gave up religion and got back to God.” ~ Lenny Bruce
- “It’s the suppression of the word that gives it the power, the violence, the viciousness.” ~ Lenny Bruce
- “The ‘what should be’ never did exist, but people keep trying to live up to it. There is no ‘what should be,’ there is only what is.” ~ Lenny Bruce
-
“There’s a lot of money in wars, except in the war on poverty. Can’t make any bread helping the poor.” ~ Lenny Bruce
- “Marijuana will be legal someday because the many law students who now smoke pot will someday become congressmen and legalize it in order to protect themselves.” ~ Lenny Bruce
- “The liberals can understand everything but people who don’t understand them.” ~ Lenny Bruce
- “Darwin’s theory is as dead as he is. Everyone is surviving, fit or not. Years ago, any kid dumb enough to chase a shiny object down a well was dead, and out of the gene pool. Now they got the technology and medicine to save the fool so he can breed more open mouth breathers.” ~ Lenny Bruce
- “You are a white. The Imperial Wizard. Now, if you don’t think this is logic you can burn me on the fiery cross. This is the logic: You have the choice of spending fifteen years married to a woman, a black woman or a white woman. Fifteen years kissing and hugging and sleeping real close on hot nights. With a black, black woman or a white, white woman. The white woman is Kate Smith. And the black woman is Lena Horne. So you’re not concerned with black or white anymore, are you? You are concerned with how cute or how pretty. Then let’s really get basic and persecute ugly people!” ~ Lenny Bruce
-
“There are no dirty words, only dirty minds.” ~ Lenny Bruce
- “If Jesus had been killed twenty years ago, Catholic school children would be wearing little electric chairs around their necks instead of crosses.” ~ Lenny Bruce
- “Faith is to the human what sand is to the ostrich.” ~ Lenny Bruce
- “Freedom of speech is a two-way street, man. You have the right to say whatever you want and the Boss has a right to tell the police to arrest you.” ~ Lenny Bruce
- “Anyone who has two shirts when someone has none is not a Christian.” ~ Lenny Bruce
-
“There are never enough I Love You’s.” ~ Lenny Bruce
- “Guys are like dogs. They keep comin’ back. Ladies are like cats. Yell at a cat one time, they’re gone.” ~ Lenny Bruce
- “You got a million drug laws now because the bosses figured there was more money in putting people in jail than taxing something anyone can grow on a window sill.” ~ Lenny Bruce
- “Once the country was settled and built, the bosses changed the order from a stack of educated workers to a barrel of minimum wage lottery dreamers.” ~ Lenny Bruce
-
“Never trust a preacher with more than two suits.” ~ Lenny Bruce
- “You know there’s no crooked politicians. There’s never a lie because there is never any truth.” ~ Lenny Bruce
- “If there was absolute freedom, people would run over babies and charge admission.” ~ Lenny Bruce
- “Every day people are straying away from the church and going back to God.” ~ Lenny Bruce
- “Once you take away the struggle for food, clothing and shelter, work is the one four-letter word that offends everyone.” ~ Lenny Bruce
- “If you’re from New York and you’re Catholic, you’re still Jewish. If you’re from Butte Montana and you’re Jewish, you’re still goyisch. The Air Force is Jewish, the Marine Corps dangerous goyisch. Rye Bread is Jewish, instant potatoes, scary goyisch. Eddie Cantor is goyisch, George Jessel is goyisch-Coleman Hawkins is Jewish.” ~ Lenny Bruce
-
“If something about the human body disgusts you, the fault lies with the manufacturer.” ~ Lenny Bruce
- “Every group, every system has a set of values and morals and when you get outside those, then the alarms ring. I was politically incorrect to 95% of the country; luckily my 5% had the bread to come see me.” ~ Lenny Bruce
- “Koolaid is goyish. All Drake’s Cakes are goyish. Pumpernickel is Jewish, and, as you know, white bread is very goyish. Instant potatoes – goyish. Black cherry soda’s very Jewish. Macaroons are very Jewish – very Jewish cake. Fruit salad is Jewish. Lime Jell-O is goyish. Lime soda is very goyish. Trailer parks are so goyish that Jews won’t go near them.” ~ Lenny Bruce
- “You can’t do anything with anybody’s body to make it dirty to me. Six people, eight people, one person – you can do only one thing to make it dirty: kill it. Hiroshima was dirty.” ~ Lenny Bruce
-
“Let me tell you the truth: The truth is what is. And what should be is a fantasy a terrible, terrible lie that someone gave the people long ago.” ~ Lenny Bruce
- “To say whatever nonsense comes into your head without any repercussions has got to be a bigger high than heckling a movie screen in a darkened theater.” ~ Lenny Bruce
- “All my humor is based upon destruction and despair. If the whole world were tranquil, without disease and violence, I’d be standing on the breadline right in back of J. Edgar Hoover.” ~ Lenny Bruce
- “Trying to figure things out was my gig. Without the human condition, there’s no struggle, no pain and that means no laughter.” ~ Lenny Bruce
-
“What is truth today may be a damn lie next week.” ~ Lenny Bruce
- “Alright, let’s admit it, we Jews killed Christ – but it was only for three days.” ~ Lenny Bruce
- “That’s where the conflict starts. We all want for a wife a combination Sunday school teacher and a $500-a-night hooker.” ~ Lenny Bruce
- “Life is a four-letter word.” ~ Lenny Bruce
- “I was surprised when Nixon passed the test and showed up in heaven, but, I guess Hitler threw off the curve for our century.” ~ Lenny Bruce
-
“My mother-in-law broke up my marriage. My wife came home from work one day and found me in bed with her.” ~ Lenny Bruce
- “Wouldn’t it be nice if all the people who are lonesome could live in one big dormitory, sleep in beds next to each other, talk, laugh, and keep the lights on as long as they want to?” ~ Lenny Bruce
- “Never tell. Not if you love your wife…In fact, if your old lady walks in on you deny it. Yeah. Just flat out and she’ll believe it: “I’m tellin’ ya. This chick came downstairs with a sign around her neck ‘Lay On Top Of Me Or I’ll Die.’ ” I didn’t know what I was goin’ to do.” ~ Lenny Bruce
- “When you’re eight years old, nothing is any of your business.” ~ Lenny Bruce
-
“I won’t say ours was a tough school, but we had our own coroner. We used to write songs like, “What I’m going to do if I grow up”.” ~ Lenny Bruce
- “Satire is tragedy plus time. You give it enough time, the public, the reviewers will allow you to satirize it. Which is rather ridiculous, when you think about it.” ~ Lenny Bruce
- “A lot of people say to me, ‘Why did you kill Christ?’ I dunno, it was one of those parties, got out of hand, you know.” ~ Lenny Bruce
- “The thing with Catholicism, the same as all religions, is that it teaches what should be, which seems rather incorrect. This is what should be. Now, if you’re taught to live up to a what should be that never existed – only an occult superstition, no proof of this should be – then you can sit on a jury and indict easily, you can cast the first stone, you can burn Adolf Eichmann, like that!” ~ Lenny Bruce
-
“When earth gets good and crowded, like 15th century England, then some new Pilgrims are gonna rocket their Mayflowers to a new solar system.” ~ Lenny Bruce
- “If I just stuck to pot I might have found out what a drag being an aging hipster actually was.” ~ Lenny Bruce
- “I am influenced by every second of my waking hour.” ~ Lenny Bruce
- “If you’re going to stop masturbating, you can’t taper off. You’ve got to quit, cold jerky!” ~ Lenny Bruce
- “I’ve been accused of bad taste, and I’ll go down to my grave accused of it and always by the same people, the ones who eat in restaurants that reserve the right to refuse service to anyone.” ~ Lenny Bruce
- “In the Halls of Justice the only justice is in the halls.” ~ Lenny Bruce
-
“The only honest art form is laughter, comedy. You can’t fake it.” ~ Lenny Bruce
- “I hate small towns because once you’ve seen the cannon in the park there’s nothing else to do.” ~ Lenny Bruce
- “I tried the religion scam in Miami, so I know how hard that gig is. But, if you can get it to work, starting your own religion is a license to print money.” ~ Lenny Bruce
- “Every tribe needs a good frontman to sell the program. Who better to convince the Middle East to give up the oil, than a brown man with a Muslim name?” ~ Lenny Bruce
-
“The only truly anonymous donor is the guy who knocks up your daughter.” ~ Lenny Bruce
- “Children ought to watch pornographic movies: it’s healthier than learning about sex from Hollywood.” ~ Lenny Bruce
- “Part of the kick of making people laugh was doing something different. We were a rare breed – spotting one of us was like pinning a space alien, or abdominal snowman. There were maybe a hundred stand-ups in the whole country when I was doing it.” ~ Lenny Bruce
- “My only challenge was to tell my truth, man… figure out what I had to say. These days, it’s not enough to boost that roomful of strangers. The young comic spends all their time trying to sound different from the million other jokesters grabbing for the mic.” ~ Lenny Bruce
-
“You got to pay your dues to get the joke. Besides, laughter is cheap and very portable. If there’s a pogrom, or they’re blaming you for the plague, nothing is easier to pack than a sense of humor.” ~ Lenny Bruce
- “Sex and obscenity are not synonymous.” ~ Lenny Bruce
- “I’ve talked to biblical cats, and Neanderthals who been here since day one. No one here has even seen the Big Boss. Ever.” ~ Lenny Bruce
- “Every group needs a comedian. A comic who is politically incorrect at the Berkeley campus might slay them at a Klan rally.” ~ Lenny Bruce
- “The reason I’m in this business, I assume all performers are — it’s Look at me, Ma! It’s acceptance, you know — Look at me, Ma, look at me, Ma, look at me, Ma. And if your mother watches, you’ll show off till you’re exhausted; but if your mother goes, Phew!” ~ Lenny Bruce
- “All my humor is based upon destruction and despair.” ~ Lenny Bruce
