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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
Good
Politician
People
Deserve
Theory
Democracy
Politics
Common
Freedom
Hard
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One seldom discovers a true believer that is worth knowing.
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Lying is not only excusable it is not only innocent it is, above all, necessary and unavoidable. Without the ameliorations that it offers, life would become a mere syllogism and hence too metallic to be borne.
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Of government, at least in democratic states, it may be said briefly that it is an agency engaged wholesale, and as a matter of solemn duty, in the performance of acts which all self-respecting individuals refrain from as a matter of common decency.
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Metaphysics is almost always an attempt to prove the incredible by an appeal to the unintelligible.
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The most valuable of all human possessions, next to a superior and disdainful air, is the reputation of being well-to-do.
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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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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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In every woman's life there is one real and consuming love. But very few women guess which one it is.
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The pedant and the priest have always been the most expert of logicians - and the most diligent disseminators of nonsense and worse.
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The late William Jennings Bryan, L.L.D., always had one great advantage in controversy he was never burdened with an understanding of his opponent's case.
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Courtroom : A place where Jesus Christ and Judas Iscariot would be equals, with the betting odds favoring Judas.
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Nine out of ten Americans are actually monarchists at bottom. The fact is proved by their high suseptibility to political claims by president's sons and other relatives, usually nonentities.
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Love begins like a triolet and ends like a college yell.
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I know some who are constantly drunk on books as other men are drunk on whiskey.
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There comes a time in every man's life when he's consumed by the desire to spit on his palms, hoist the black flag and start cutting throats.
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Free speech is too dangerous to a democracy to be permitted
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Immorality: the morality of those who are having a better time.
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Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public.
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