My favorite St. Thomas More quote

Those of you who know me in real life know that I cuss like a sailor. I am, however, attempting to quit (or at least scale way back) because my kid’s getting to the age where she’s beginning to want to swear and I don’t want to be a hypocrite about telling her not to. If it’s really a social drawback (that’s my contention, since I don’t believe in good words and bad words, they are all just words), then I need to act like that’s so.

Anyhow, when reading along about the life and works of Thomas More (a side-effect of watching The Tudors), I am reminded that even saints have problems with potty-mouth when dealing with the likes of Luther:

Come, do not rage so violently, good father; but if you have raved wildly enough, listen now, you pimp. You recall that you falsely complained above that the king has shown no passage in your whole book, even as an example, in which he said that you contradict yourself. You told this lie shortly before, although the king has demonstrated to you many examples of your inconsistency ….
But meanwhile, for as long as your reverend paternity will be determined to tell these shameless lies, others will be permitted, on behalf of his English majesty, to throw back into your paternity’s shitty mouth, truly the shit-pool of all shit, all the muck and shit which your damnable rottenness has vomited up, and to empty out all the sewers and privies onto your crown divested of the dignity of the priestly crown, against which no less than against the kingly crown you have determined to play the buffoon.
In your sense of fairness, honest reader, you will forgive me that the utterly filthy words of this scoundrel have forced me to answer such things, for which I should have begged your leave. Now I consider truer than truth that saying: ‘He who touches pitch will be wholly defiled by it’ (Sirach 13:1). For I am ashamed even of this necessity, that while I clean out the fellow’s shit-filled mouth I see my own fingers covered with shit.