Quotations about   obscenity

We remark with pain that the indecent foreign dance called the Waltz was introduced (we believe, for the first time) at the English Court on Friday last. This is a circumstance which ought not to be passed over in silence. National morals depend on national habits: and it is quite sufficient to cast one’s eyes on the voluptuous intertwining of the limbs, and close compressure of the bodies, in this dance, to see that it is far indeed removed from the modest reserve which has hitherto been considered distinctive of English females. So long as this obscene display was confined to prostitutes and adulteresses, we did not think it deserving of notice; but now that it is attempted to be forced on the respectable classes of society by the evil example of their superiors, we feel it a duty to warn every parent against exposing his daughter to so foul a contagion. Amicus Plato sed mogis amica veritas. We pay a due deference to our superiors in rank, but we owe a higher duty to morality. We know not how it has happened (probably by the recommendation of some worthless and ignorant French dancing-master) that so indecent a dance now has for the first time been exhibited at the English court; but the novelty is one deserving of severe reprobation, and we trust it will never again be tolerated in any moral English society.

(Other Authors and Sources)
“Dance Called the Waltz,” The Times of London, 2nd printing (16 Jul 1816)
    (Source)

After the "introduction" of the waltz at a London Ball given by the Prince Regent. The dance had actually been present in London dance studios since 1812, and waltz music had come across from Europe earlier than that.

The Latin means "Plato I love, but I love Truth more," attributed to Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 1096a.15.