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Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.

H. L. Mencken

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H. L. Mencken
Age: 75 †
Born: 1880
Born: September 12
Died: 1956
Died: January 29
Autobiographer
Essayist
Historian
Journalist
Linguist
Literary Critic
Satirist
Social Critic
Writer
Baltimore
Maryland
Henry Louis Mencken
Theory
Democracy
Politics
Common
Freedom
Hard
Good
Politician
People
Deserve

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The saddest life is that of a political aspirant under democracy. His failure is ignominious and his success is disgraceful.
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The thing constantly overlooked by those hopefuls who talk about abolishing war is that it is by no means an evidence of decay but rather a proof of health and vigor.
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No matter how much a woman loved a man, it would still give her a glow to see him commit suicide for her.
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People do not expect to find chastity in a whorehouse. Why, then, do they expect to find honesty and humanity in government, a congeries of institutions whose modus operandi consists of lying, cheating, stealing, and if need be, murdering those who resist?
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Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule—and both commonly succeed, and are right.
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The capacity of human beings to bore one another seems to be vastly greater than that of any other animal.
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Whenever a reporter is assigned to cover a Methodist conference, he comes home an atheist.
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[A formula for answering controversial letters -- without even reading the letters:] Dear Sir (or Madame): You may be right.
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Osteopath--One who argues that all human ills are caused by the pressure of hard bone upon soft tissue. The proof of his theory isto be found in the heads of those who believe it.
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The typical lawmaker of today is a man wholly devoid of principle - a mere counter in a grotesque and knavish game. If the right pressure could be applied to him, he would be cheerfully in favor of polygamy, astrology or cannibalism.
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If there had been any formidable body of cannibals in the country, Harry Truman would have promised to provide them with free missionaries fattened at the taxpayer's expense.
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Why writers write I do not know. As well ask why a hen lays an egg or why a cow stands patiently while an underprivileged farmer burglarizes her.
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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.
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I am against slavery simply because I dislike slaves.
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The only way that a government can provide for jobs for all citizens is by deciding what every man should do.
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Laws are no longer made by a rational process of public discussion they are made by a process of blackmail and intimidation, and they are executed in the same manner
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Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under.
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What fetched me instantly (and thousands of other newcomers with me) was the subtle but unmistakable sense of escape from the United States.
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Debussy--A pretty girl with one blue eye and one brown one.
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