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Before a man speaks it is always safe to assume that he is a fool. After he speaks, it is seldom necessary to assume it.
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
Men
Assuming
Safety
Necessary
Fool
Safe
Literature
Seldom
Speak
Speaks
Always
Assume
More quotes by H. L. Mencken
What restrains us from killing is partly fear of punishment, partly moral scruple, and partly what may be described as a sense of humor
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Religion is so absurd that it comes close to imbecility.
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No professional politician is ever actually in favor of public economy. It is his implacable enemy, and he knows it. All professional politicians are dedicated wholeheartedly to waste and corruption. They are the enemies of every decent man.
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Unionism, seldom if ever, uses such powers as it has to ensure better work almost always it devotes a large part of that power to safeguard bad work.
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The worst of marriage is that it makes a woman believe that all men are just as easy to fool.
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A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin.
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The mistake that is made always runs the other way. Because the plain people are able to speak and understand, and even, in many cases, to read and write, it is assumed that they have ideas in their heads, and an appetite for more. This assumption is a folly.
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No man ever quite believes in any other man.
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The most costly of all follies is to believe passionately in the palpably not true. It is the chief occupation of mankind.
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A great nation is any mob of people which produces at least one honest man a century.
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To every complex question there is a simple answer and it is wrong.
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I detest converts almost as much as I do missionaries.
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The book of Genesis, a farrago of nonsense so wholly absurd that even Sunday-school scholars have to be threatened with Hell to make them accept it.
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A poet over 30 is pathetic
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The course of the United States in World War II, I said, was dishonest, dishonorable, and ignominious, and the Sunpapers, by supporting Roosevelt's foreign policy, shared in this disgrace.
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A great literature is thus chiefly the product of doubting and inquiring minds in revolt against the immovable certainties of the nation.
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No man is worthy of unlimited reliance-his treason, at best, only waits for sufficient temptation.
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The only way for a reporter to look at a politician is down.
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The first kiss is stolen by the man the last is begged by the woman.
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Hamlet has been played by 5,000 actors, no wonder he is crazy.
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