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The smallest atom of truth represents some man's bitter toil and agony for every ponderable chunk of it there is a brave truth-seeker's grave upon some lonely ash-dump and a soul roasting in hell.

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
Graves
Seekers
Soul
Bitter
Agony
Every
Honesty
Toil
Roasting
Men
Lonely
Ashes
Chunk
Brave
Represents
Seeker
Hell
Atoms
Chunks
Smallest
Dump
Upon
Grave
Atom
Truth

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Capitalism undoubtedly has certain boils and blotches upon it, but has it as many as government? Has it as many as marriage? Has it as many as religion? I doubt it. It is the only basic institution of modern man that shows any genuine health and vigor.
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It is impossible to imagine the universe run by a wise, just and omnipotent God, but it is quite easy to imagine it run by a board of gods.
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It is the theory of all modern civilized governments that they protect and foster the liberty of the citizen it is the practice of all of them to limit its exercise, and sometimes very narrowly.
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The movies today are too rich to have any room for genuine artists. They produce a few passable craftsmen, but no artists. Can you imagine a Beethoven making $100, 000 a year?
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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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Liberty and democracy are eternal enemies, and every one knows it who has ever given any sober reflection to the matter.
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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 curse of man, and the cause of nearly all his woe, is his stupendous capacity for believing the incredible.
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Socialist: A man suffering from an overwhelming conviction to believe what is not true.
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The true bureaucrat is a man of really remarkable talents. He writes a kind of English that is unknown elsewhere in the world, and an almost infinite capacity for forming complicated and unworkable rules.
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Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.
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All great religions, in order to escape absurdity, have to admit a dilution of agnosticism. It is only the savage, whether of the African bush or the American gospel tent, who pretends to know the will and intent of God exactly and completely.
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I am against slavery simply because I dislike slaves.
H. L. Mencken
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Don't overestimate the decency of the human race.
H. L. Mencken
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It is almost as safe to assume that an artist of any dignity is against his country, i.e., against the environment in which God hath placed him, as it is to assume that his country is against the artist.
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The instant I reach Heaven, I'm going to speak to God very sharply.
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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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All the great villainies of history, from the murder of Abel onward, have been perpetrated by sober men, chiefly by Teetotalers.
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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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War is the only sport which is genuinely amusing. And it is the only sport which has any intelligible use.
H. L. Mencken