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There is in writing the constant joy of sudden discovery, of happy accident.

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
Constant
Joy
Happy
Writing
Accident
Sudden
Accidents
Discovery

More quotes by H. L. Mencken

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Richard Strauss--Old Home Week in Gomorrah
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They have taken the care and upbringing of children out of the hands of parents, where it belongs, and thrown it upon a gang of irresponsible and unintelligent quacks.
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[Referring to FDR] If he became convinced tomorrow that coming out for cannibalism would get him the votes he needs so sorely, he would begin fattening a missionary in the White House yard come Wednesday.
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What men value in this world is not rights but privileges.
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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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The true function of art is to criticize, embellish and edit nature… the artist is a sort of impassioned proof-reader, blue penciling the bad spelling of God.
H. L. Mencken
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To the man with an ear for verbal delicacies- the man who searches painfully for the perfect word, and puts the way of saying a thing above the thing said - there is in writing the constant joy of sudden discovery, of happy accident.
H. L. Mencken
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The storm center of lawlessness in every American State is the State Capitol. It is there that the worst crimes are committed it is there that lawbreaking attains to the estate and dignity of a learned profession it is there that contempt for the laws is engendered, fostered, and spread broadcast.
H. L. Mencken
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It is only doubt that creates.
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The curse of man, and the cause of nearly all his woe, is his stupendous capacity for believing the incredible.
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I know of no existing nation that deserves to live, and I know of very few individuals.
H. L. Mencken
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One horse-laugh is worth ten-thousand syllogisms.
H. L. Mencken
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It is not the drinker, but the man who has just stopped drinking, who thinks the world is going to the dogs.
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A prohibitionist is the sort of man one couldn't care to drink with, even if he drank.
H. L. Mencken
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The worst government is the most moral.
H. L. Mencken
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The argument that capital punishment degrades the state is moonshine, for if that were true then it would degrade the state to send men to war... The state, in truth, is degraded in its very nature: a few butcheries cannot do it any further damage.
H. L. Mencken
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Of government, at least in democratic states, it may be said briefly that it is an agency engaged wholesale, and as a matter of solemn duty, in the performance of acts which all self-respecting individuals refrain from as a matter of common decency.
H. L. Mencken
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It is surely no mere coincidence that the land of the emancipated and enthroned woman is also the land of canned soup, of canned pork and beans, of whole meals in cans, and of everything else ready made.
H. L. Mencken
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Women have a hard enough time in this world: telling them the truth would be too cruel.
H. L. Mencken
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Experience is a poor guide to man, and is seldom followed. What really teaches a man is not experience, but observation.
H. L. Mencken