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The lunatic fringe wags the underdog.

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
Inspirational
Wags
Eccentricity
Underdog
Fringe
Lunatic
Eccentric
Funny

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The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out for himself.
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The final test of truth is ridicule. Very few dogmas have ever faced it and survived.
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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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Have you ever watched a crab on the shore crawling backward in search of the Atlantic Ocean, and missing? That's the way the mind of man operates.
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We suffer most when the White House busts with ideas.
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It is the natural tendency of the ignorant to believe what is not true. In order to overcome that tendency it is not sufficient to exhibit the true it is also necessary to expose and denounce the false.
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I believe that religion, generally speaking, has been a curse to mankind - that its modest and greatly overestimated services on the ethical side have been more than overcome by the damage it has done to clear and honest thinking.
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Jealousy is a keen observer, but looks for all the wrong signs.
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I give you Chicago. It is not London and Harvard. It is not Paris and buttermilk. It is American in every chitling and sparerib. It is alive from snout to tail.
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A man is called a good fellow for doing things which, if done by a woman, would land her in a lunatic asylum.
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Love is photogenic. It needs darkness room to develop
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The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.
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Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.
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Love is an emotion that is based on an opinion of women that is impossible for those who have had any experience with them.
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I detest converts almost as much as I do missionaries.
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History deals mainly with captains and kings, gods and prophets, exploiters and despoilers, not with useful men.
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For it is mutual trust, even more than mutual interest that holds human associations together.
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A man of active and resilient mind outwears his friendships just as certainly as he outwears his love affairs, his politics and his epistemology.
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A great nation is any mob of people which produces at least one honest man a century.
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