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"52 H. L. Mencken Quotes & Sayings

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Born: 12 September 1880. Died: 29 January 1956 | Writer |

It is inaccurate to say that I hate everything. I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty, and common decency. This makes me forever ineligible for public office.

Sense Honesty Decency Forever
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The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

Aim Endless Hence Imaginary
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Immorality: the morality of those who are having a better time.
Better Better Time Having Immorality
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Conscience is the inner voice that warns us that someone might be looking.
Conscience Inner Inner Voice Looking
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A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin.

Around Coffin Cynic Flowers
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The penalty for laughing in a courtroom is six months in jail; if it were not for this penalty, the jury would never hear the evidence.

Courtroom Evidence Hear Jail
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We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart.

Beautiful Children Extent Fellow
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Communism, like any other revealed religion, is largely made up of prophecies.

Any Communism Largely Like
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It is hard to believe that a man is telling the truth when you know that you would lie if you were in his place.

Believe Hard His Know
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It is impossible to imagine the universe run by a wise, just and omnipotent God, but it is quite easy to imagine it run by a board of gods.

Board Easy God Gods
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A newspaper is a device for making the ignorant more ignorant and the crazy crazier.

Crazier Crazy Device Ignorant
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God is a comedian, playing to an audience too afraid to laugh.
Afraid Audience Comedian God
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The cynics are right nine times out of ten.

Cynics Nine Out Right
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Criticism is prejudice made plausible.
Criticism Made Plausible Prejudice
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The one permanent emotion of the inferior man is fear - fear of the unknown, the complex, the inexplicable. What he wants above everything else is safety.

Above Complex Else Emotion
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Democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey cage.

Art Cage Circus Democracy
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If, after I depart this vale, you ever remember me and have thought to please my ghost, forgive some sinner and wink your eye at some homely girl.

After Depart Ever Eye
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The basic fact about human existence is not that it is a tragedy, but that it is a bore. It is not so much a war as an endless standing in line.

About Basic Bore Endless
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Love is the delusion that one woman differs from another.

Another Delusion Differs Love
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Strike an average between what a woman thinks of her husband a month before she marries him and what she thinks of him a year afterward, and you will have the truth about him.

About Afterwards Average Before
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Bachelors know more about women than married men; if they didn't they'd be married too.

About Bachelors Know Married
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A man may be a fool and not know it, but not if he is married.
Fool He Know Man
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Men have a much better time of it than women. For one thing, they marry later; for another thing, they die earlier.

Another Better Better Time Die
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No married man is genuinely happy if he has to drink worse whisky than he used to drink when he was single.

Drink Genuinely Happy He
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It is now quite lawful for a Catholic woman to avoid pregnancy by a resort to mathematics, though she is still forbidden to resort to physics or chemistry.

Avoid Catholic Chemistry Forbidden
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An idealist is one who, on noticing that roses smell better than a cabbage, concludes that it will also make better soup.

Also Better Cabbage Idealist
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Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.

Begin Black Every Flag
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Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence.

Imagination Intelligence Love Love Is
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I hate all sports as rabidly as a person who likes sports hates common sense.

Common Hate Hates Likes
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The older I grow the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom.

Age Brings Distrust Doctrine
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We are here and it is now. Further than that, all human knowledge is moonshine.
Further Here Human Human Knowledge
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All government, of course, is against liberty.
Against Course Government Liberty
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Marriage is a wonderful institution, but who would want to live in an institution?

Institution Live Marriage Want
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It doesn't take a majority to make a rebellion; it takes only a few determined leaders and a sound cause.

Cause Determined Few Leaders
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The theory seems to be that as long as a man is a failure he is one of God's children, but that as soon as he succeeds he is taken over by the Devil.

Children Devil Failure God
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Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable.

Belief Defined Faith Illogical
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Puritanism. The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.
Be Happy Fear Happy Haunting
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Democracy is also a form of worship. It is the worship of Jackals by Jackasses.

Also Democracy Form Worship
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Opera in English is, in the main, just about as sensible as baseball in Italian.

About Baseball English Italian
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Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.

Belief Collective Democracy Ignorance
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I never smoked a cigarette until I was nine.

Cigarette Never Nine Smoked
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For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.

Answer Clear Complex Every
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As the arteries grow hard, the heart grows soft.

Grow Grows Hard Heart
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A society made up of individuals who were all capable of original thought would probably be unendurable.

Capable Individuals Made Original
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The chief value of money lies in the fact that one lives in a world in which it is overestimated.

Chief Fact Lies Lives
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No one in this world, so far as I know - and I have searched the records for years, and employed agents to help me - has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people.

Agents Employed Ever Far
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If a politician found he had cannibals among his constituents, he would promise them missionaries for dinner.

Among Cannibals Constituents Dinner
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A national political campaign is better than the best circus ever heard of, with a mass baptism and a couple of hangings thrown in.

Baptism Best Better Campaign
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Each party steals so many articles of faith from the other, and the candidates spend so much time making each other's speeches, that by the time election day is past there is nothing much to do save turn the sitting rascals out and let a new gang in.

Articles By The Time Candidates Day
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The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out... without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, intolerable.

Able Almost Any Conclusion
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H. L. Mencken Quotes & Sayings