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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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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
Artist
Spelling
Art
Edits
True
Criticize
Nature
Proof
Function
Blue
Embellish
Reader
Impassioned
Sort
Edit

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I never lecture, not because I am shy or a bad speaker, but simply because I detest the sort of people who go to lectures and don't want to meet them.
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The instant I reach Heaven, I'm going to speak to God very sharply.
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But I wonder where we will land if trial judges begin deciding that the fact that a man has committed an atrocious crime is proof sufficient that he is not responsible for his acts.
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For every problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
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A man always blames the woman who fools him. In the same way he blames the door he walks into in the dark.
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The federal [bank deposit] insurance scheme has worked up to now simply and solely because there have been very few bank failures. The next time we have a pestilence of them it will come to grief quickly enough, and if the good banks escape ruin with the bad ones it will be only because the taxpayer foots the bill.
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A prohibitionist is the sort of man one couldn't care to drink with, even if he drank.
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Debussy--A pretty girl with one blue eye and one brown one.
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There is only one honest impulse at the bottom of Puritanism, and that is the impulse to punish the man with a superior capacity for happiness.
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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.
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Culture itself is neither education nor law-making: it is an atmosphere and a heritage.
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The intellectual heritage of the race belongs to the minority.
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The Christian always swears a bloody oath that he will never do it again. The civilized man simply resolves to be a bit more careful next time.
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There's no underestimating the intelligence of the American public.
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As long as you represent me as praising alcohol I shall not complain.
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If I had my way, any man guilty of golf would be ineligible for any office of trust in the United States.
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Is it hot in the rolling mill? Are the hours long? Is $15 a day not enough? Then escape is easy. Simply throw up your job, spit on your hands, and write another Rosenkavailer.
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The first kiss is stolen by the man the last is begged by the woman.
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