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Congress consists of one-third, more or less, scoundrels two-thirds, more or less, idiots and three-thirds, more or less, poltroons.

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
Thirds
Congress
Less
Scoundrels
Three
Idiots
Two
Consists
Idiot
Third

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Courtroom : A place where Jesus Christ and Judas Iscariot would be equals, with the betting odds favoring Judas.
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A living language is like a man suffering incessantly from small hemorrhages, and what it needs above all else is constant transactions of new blood from other tongues. The day the gates go up, that day it begins to die.
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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 longest sentence you can form with two words is: I do.
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Who will argue that 98.6 Farenheit is the right temperature for man? As for me, I decline to do it. It may be that we are all actually freezing hence the pervading stupidity of mankind. At 110 or 115 degrees even archbishops might be intelligent.
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For every problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
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If what I may believe - about gall-stones, the Constitution, castor oil, or God - is conditioned by law, then I am not a free man.
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The way to deal with superstition is not to be polite to it, but to tackle it with all arms, and so rout it, cripple it, and make it forever infamous and ridiculous.
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Before a man speaks it is always safe to assume that he is a fool. After he speaks, it is seldom necessary to assume it.
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Economic independence is the foundation of the only sort of freedom worth a damn
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Law and its instrument, government, are necessary to the peace and safety of all of us, but all of us, unless we live the lives of mud turtles, frequently find them arrayed against us.
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The essential dilemma of education is to be found in the fact that the sort of man (or woman) who knows a given subject sufficiently well to teach it is usually unwilling to do so.
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Evil: That which one believes of others. It is a sin to believe evil of others, but it is seldom a mistake
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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.
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When I think of anything properly describable as a beautiful idea, it is always in the form of music. I have written and printed probably 10,000,000 words in English but all the same I shall die an inarticulate man, for my best ideas beset me in a language I know only vaguely and speak only as a child.
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When a woman says she won't, it's a good sign that she will. And when she says she will, it is an even better sign.
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I hate all sports as rabidly as a person who likes sports hates common sense.
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There are two impossibilities in life: just one drink and an honest politician.
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A wealthy man is one who earns $100 a year more than his wife's sister's husband.
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Better than the rest of us, they [the Jews] sensed what was ahead for their people.
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