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I know some who are constantly drunk on books as other men are drunk on whiskey.

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
Whisky
Whiskey
Drunk
Constantly
Books
Book
Men

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The natural tendency of every government is to grow steadily worse-that is, to grow more satisfactory to those who constitute it and less satisfactory to those who support it.
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We have had more brilliant Presidents than Cleveland, and one or two who were considerably more profound, but we have never had one, at least since Washington, whose fundamental character was solider and more admirable.
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It is only doubt that creates.
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For it is mutual trust, even more than mutual interest that holds human associations together.
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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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It doesn't take a majority to make a rebellion it takes only a few determined leaders and a sound cause.
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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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The human race is divided into two sharply differentiated and mutually antagonistic classes: a smal l minority that plays with ideas and is capable of taking them in, and a vast majority that finds them painful, and is thus arrayed against them, and against all who have traffic with them.
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I think the Negro people should feel secure enough by now to face a reasonable ridicule without terror. I am unalterably opposed to all efforts to put down free speech, whatever the excuse.
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He slept more than any other president, whether by day or by night. Nero fiddled, but Coolidge only snored.
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I confess I enjoy democracy immensely. It is incomparably idiotic, and hence incomparably amusing.
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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.
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Pastor: One employed by the wicked to prove to them by his example that virtue doesn't pay.
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If x is the population of the United States and y is the degree of imbecility of the average American, then democracy is the theory that x times y is less than y
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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.
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It is the dull man who is always sure, and the sure man who is always dull.
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No one hates his job so heartily as a farmer.
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The idea that the sole aim of punishment is to prevent crime is obviously grounded upon the theory that crime can be prevented, which is almost as dubious as the notion that poverty can be prevented.
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Time is a great legalizer, even in the field of morals
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Nature abhors a moron.
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