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Nine times out of ten, in the arts as in life, there is actually no truth to be discovered there is only error to be exposed.

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
Art
Arts
Truth
Discovered
Life
Errors
Nine
Ten
Literature
Actually
Exposed
Times
Error

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Who will argue that 98.6 Farenheit is the right temperature for man? As for me, I decline to do it. It may be that we are all actually freezing hence the pervading stupidity of mankind. At 110 or 115 degrees even archbishops might be intelligent.
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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 government is often the most moral. One composed of cynics is often very tolerant and humane. But when fanatics are on top there is no limit to oppression.
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Save among politicians it is no longer necessary for any educated American to profess belief in Thirteenth Century ideas
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Youth, though it may lack knowledge, is certainly not devoid of intelligence it sees through shams with sharp and terrible eyes.
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Platitude: an idea (a) that is admitted to be true by everyone, and (b) that is not true.
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The American people, North and South, went into the [Civil] war as citizens of their respective states, they came out as subjects ... what they thus lost they have never got back.
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The allurement that women hold out to men is precisely the allurement that Cape Hatteras holds out to sailors they are enormously dangerous and hence enormously fascinating.
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The older I grow the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom.
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Hamlet has been played by 5,000 actors, no wonder he is crazy.
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How little it takes to make life unbearable: a pebble in the shoe, a cockroach in the spaghetti, a woman's laugh.
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Absence is the dark-room in which lovers develop negatives.
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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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What we need in this country is a general improvement in eating. We have the best raw materials in the world, both quantitatively and qualitatively, but most of them are ruined in the process of preparing them for the table.
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Only a jackass ever talks over his affairs with a woman, whether she be his sweetheart, wife, or sister, or mother.
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The music critic, Huneber, could never quite make up his mind about a new symphony until he had seen the composer's mistress.
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Immorality: the morality of those who are having a better time.
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The instant I reach Heaven, I'm going to speak to God very sharply.
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Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public.
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