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We are here and it is now. Further than that, all human knowledge is moonshine.

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
Religion
Inspirational
Spirit
Human
Humans
Moonshine
Spirituality
Drinking
Knowledge

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The Public ... demands certainties ... But there are not certainties
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Living with a dog is easy- like living with an idealist.
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The only liberty an inferior man really cherishes is the liberty to quit work, stretch out in the sun, and scratch himself.
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The average man gets his living by such depressing devices that boredom becomes a sort of natural state to him.
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Say what you will about the ten commandments, you must always come back to the pleasant fact that there are only ten of them.
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I believe in the complete freedom of thought and speech - alike for the humblest man and the mightiest, and in the utmost freedom of conduct that is consistent with living in organized society.
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No man is worthy of unlimited reliance-his treason, at best, only waits for sufficient temptation.
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Osteopath--One who argues that all human ills are caused by the pressure of hard bone upon soft tissue. The proof of his theory isto be found in the heads of those who believe it.
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The way to deal with superstition is not to be polite to it, but to tackle it with all arms, and so rout it, cripple it, and make it forever infamous and ridiculous.
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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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The trouble with Communism is the Communists, just as the trouble with Christianity is the Christians.
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The great difficulty about keeping the Ten Commandments is that no man can keep them and be a gentleman.
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Congress consists of one-third, more or less, scoundrels two-thirds, more or less, idiots and three-thirds, more or less, poltroons.
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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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The saddest life is that of a political aspirant under democracy. His failure is ignominious and his success is disgraceful.
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The chief knowledge that's man on from reading books is the knowledge that very few of them are worth reading.
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The lunatic fringe wags the underdog.
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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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Unsuccessful candidates for the Presidency should be quietly hanged as a matter of public sanitation and decorum.
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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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