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To sum up: 1. The cosmos is a gigantic fly-wheel making 10,000 revolutions a minute. 2. Man is a sick fly taking a dizzy ride on it. 3. Religion is the theory that the wheel was designed and set spinning to give him the ride.
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
Making
Minute
Revolutions
Give
Sick
Rebellious
Giving
Revolution
Spinning
Men
Taking
Wheel
Theory
Cosmos
Minutes
Wheels
Religious
Designed
Dizzy
Religion
Ride
Gigantic
More quotes by H. L. Mencken
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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The late William Jennings Bryan, L.L.D., always had one great advantage in controversy he was never burdened with an understanding of his opponent's case.
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If all the lawyers were hanged tomorrow, and their bones were sold to a mah jong factory, we'd all be freer and safer, and our taxes would be reduced by almost a half.
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It is the fundamental theory of all the more recent American law...that the average citizen is half-witted, and hence not to be trusted to either his own devices or his own thoughts.
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I know some who are constantly drunk on books as other men are drunk on whiskey.
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People do not expect to find chastity in a whorehouse. Why, then, do they expect to find honesty and humanity in government, a congeries of institutions whose modus operandi consists of lying, cheating, stealing, and if need be, murdering those who resist?
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One smart reader is worth a thousand boneheads.
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A free citizen in a free state, it seems to me, has an inalienable right to play with whomsoever he will, so long as he does not disturb the general peace. If any other citizen, offended by the spectacle, makes a pother, then that other citizen, and not the man exercising his inalienable right, should be put down by the police.
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Better than the rest of us, they [the Jews] sensed what was ahead for their people.
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A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin.
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For it is mutual trust, even more than mutual interest that holds human associations together.
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Wife: one who is sorry she did it, but would undoubtedly do it again.
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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 lunatic fringe wags the underdog.
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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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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.
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A tin horn politician with the manner of a rural corn doctor and the mien of a ham actor
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In every woman's life there is one real and consuming love. But very few women guess which one it is.
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Of learned men, the clergy show the lowest development of professional ethics. Any pastor is free to cadge customers from the divines of rival sects, and to denounce the divines themselves as theological quacks.
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It is impossible to believe that the same God who permitted His own son to die a bachelor regards celibacy as an actual sin.
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