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On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.

H. L. Mencken

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H. L. Mencken
Age: 75 †
Born: 1880
Born: September 12
Died: 1956
Died: January 29
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Henry Louis Mencken
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The fact that I have no remedy for all the sorrows of the world is no reason for my accepting yours. It simply supports the strong probability that yours is a fake.
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War is the only sport which is genuinely amusing. And it is the only sport which has any intelligible use.
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On one issue, at least, men and women agree. They both distrust women.
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If women believed in their husbands they would be a good deal happier and also a good deal more foolish.
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Bridges would not be safer if only people who knew the proper definition of a real number were allowed to design them.
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It is Hell, of course, that makes priests powerful, not Heaven, for after thousands of years of so-called civilization fear remains the one common denominator of mankind
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The great artists of the world are never Puritans, and seldom even ordinarily respectable.
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There are two impossibilities in life: just one drink and an honest politician.
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There are no institutions in America: there are only fashions.
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There are some people who read too much: The bibliobibuli.
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Here is tragedy - and here is America. For the curse of the country, as well of all democracies, is precisely the fact that it treats its best men as enemies. The aim of our society, if it may be said to have an aim, is to iron them out. The ideal American, in the public sense, is a respectable vacuum.
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Puritanism. The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.
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A mood of constructive criticism being upon me, I propose forthwith that the method of choosing legislators now prevailing in the United States be abandoned and that the method used in choosing juries be substituted. That is to say, I propose that the men who make our laws be chosen by chance and against will of all the rest of us, as now.
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In any combat between a rogue and a fool the sympathy of mankind is always with the rogue.
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During many a single week, I daresay, more money is spent in New York upon useless and evil things than would suffice to run the kingdom of Denmark for a year.
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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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Jealousy is a keen observer, but looks for all the wrong signs.
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Why do men delight in work? Fundamentally, I suppose, because there is a sense of relief and pleasure in getting something done - a kind of satisfaction not unlike that which a hen enjoys on laying an egg.
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The true function of art is to criticize, embellish and edit nature… the artist is a sort of impassioned proof-reader, blue penciling the bad spelling of God.
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New York is the place where all the aspirations of the western world meet to form one vast master aspiration, as powerful as the suction of a steam dredge. It is the icing on the pie called Christian civilization.
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