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Democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey cage.
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
Democracy
Politics
Monkey
Science
Cage
Running
Cages
Art
Circus
Political
Monkeys
Insanity
Thrive
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The central belief of every moron is that he is the victim of a mysterious conspiracy against his common rights and true deserts.
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God must love the rich or he wouldn't divide so much among so few of them.
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One of the things that makes a Negro unpleasant to white folk is the fact that he suffers from their injustice. He is thus a standing rebuke to them.
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To the man with an ear for verbal delicacies- the man who searches painfully for the perfect word, and puts the way of saying a thing above the thing said - there is in writing the constant joy of sudden discovery, of happy accident.
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The most popular man under a democracy is not the most democratic man, but the most despotic man. The common folk delight in the exactions of such a man. They like him to boss them. Their natural gait is the goose step.
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Adultery is the application of democracy to love.
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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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We suffer most when the White House busts with ideas.
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Religion is fundamentally opposed to everything I hold in veneration - courage, clear thinking, honesty, fairness, and, above all, love of the truth.
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The essence of science is that it is always willing to abandon a given idea for a better one the essence of theology is that it holds its truths to be eternal and immutable.
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War will never cease until babies begin to come into the world with larger cerebrums and smaller adrenal glands.
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At the end of one millennium and nine centuries of Christianity, it remains an unshakable assumption of the law in all Christian countries and of the moral judgement of Christians everywhere that if a man and a woman, entering a room together, close the door behind them, the man will come out sadder and the woman wiser.
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The most satisfying and ecstatic faith is almost purely agnostic. It trusts absolutely without professing to know at all.
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No government is ever really in favor of so-called civil rights. It always tries to whittle them down. They are preserved under all governments, insofar as they survive at all, by special classes of fanatics, often highly dubious.
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Never argue with a man whose job depends on not being convinced.
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For it is mutual trust, even more than mutual interest that holds human associations together.
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But I wonder where we will land if trial judges begin deciding that the fact that a man has committed an atrocious crime is proof sufficient that he is not responsible for his acts.
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The motive of fear is the be-all and end-all of religion.
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When women kiss it always reminds one of prize fighters shaking hands.
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Without a doubt there are women who would vote intelligently. There are also men who knit socks beautifully.
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