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There are men so philosophical that they can see humor in their own toothaches. But there has never lived a man so philosophical that he could see the toothache in his own humor.

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
Toothache
Philosophical
Lived
Humor
Never
Men

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Puritanism. The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.
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The average man never really thinks from end to end of his life. The mental activity of such people is only a mouthing of clichés.
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Every failure teaches a man something, to wit, that he will probably fail again.
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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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When I die, I shall be content to vanish into nothingness.... No show, however good, could conceivably be good forever I do not believe in immortality, and have no desire for it.
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No man is worthy of unlimited reliance-his treason, at best, only waits for sufficient temptation.
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My guess is that well over eighty per cent. of the human race goes through life without having a single original thought.
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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 only way for a reporter to look at a politician is down.
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The most popular man under a democracy is not the most democratic man, but the most despotic man. The common folk delight in the exactions of such a man. They like him to boss them. Their natural gait is the goose step.
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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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I am one of the few goyim who have ever actually tackled the Talmud. I suppose you now expect me to add that it is a profound and noble work, worthy of hard study by all other goyims. Unhappily, my report must differ from this expectation. It seems to me, save for a few bright spots, to be quite indistinguishable from rubbish.
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The intelligent, like the unintelligent, are responsive to propaganda.
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Absence is the dark-room in which lovers develop negatives.
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The fact that a human brain of high amperage, otherwise highly efficient, may have a hole in it is surely not a secret.
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Don't overestimate the decency of the human race.
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No romantic novel ever written in America, by man or woman, is one half so beautiful as My Ántonia.
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School teachers, taking them by and large, are probably the most ignorant and stupid class of men in the whole group of mental workers.
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There are two impossibilities in life: just one drink and an honest politician.
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Hanging one scoundrel, it appears, does not deter the next. Well, what of it? The first one is at least disposed of.
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