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I confess I enjoy democracy immensely. It is incomparably idiotic, and hence incomparably amusing.

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
Immensely
Idiotic
Amusing
Confess
Hence
Democracy
Enjoy
Incomparably

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The only really respectable Protestants are the fundamentalists. Unfortunately, they are also palpable idiots.
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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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The motive of fear is the be-all and end-all of religion.
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Legend: A lie that has attained the dignity of age.
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When fanatics are on top there is no limit to oppression.
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Who ever heard, indeed, of an autobiography that was not (interesting)? I can recall none in all the literature of the world
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The federal [bank deposit] insurance scheme has worked up to now simply and solely because there have been very few bank failures. The next time we have a pestilence of them it will come to grief quickly enough, and if the good banks escape ruin with the bad ones it will be only because the taxpayer foots the bill.
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Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.
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All great religions, in order to escape absurdity, have to admit a dilution of agnosticism. It is only the savage, whether of the African bush or the American gospel tent, who pretends to know the will and intent of God exactly and completely.
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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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Sunday is a day given over by Americans to wishing that the themselves were dead and in Heaven, and that their neighbors were dead and in Hell.
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The older I grow the less I esteem mere ideas. In politics, particularly, they are transient and unimportant. . . . There are only men who have character and men who lack it.
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The aim of New Deals is to exterminate the class of creditors and thrust all men into that of debtors. It is like trying to breedcattle with all cows and no bulls.
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Looking for an honest politician is like looking for an ethical burglar.
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Adultery is the application of democracy to love.
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Those tragic comedians, the Chamber of Commerce red hunters, the Women's Christian Temperance Union smellers, the censors of books, the Klan regulators, the Methodist prowlers, the Baptist guardians of sacred vessels-we have the national mentality of a police lieutenant.
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The seasick passenger on an ocean liner detests the good sailor who stalks past him 265 times a day grandly smoking a large, greasy cigar. In precisely the same way the democrat hates the man who is having a better time in the world. This is the origin of democracy. It is also the origin of Puritanism.
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As long as you represent me as praising alcohol I shall not complain.
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