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The allurement that women hold out to men is precisely the allurement that Cape Hatteras holds out to sailors they are enormously dangerous and hence enormously fascinating.
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
Men
Sailor
Hence
Precisely
Holds
Fascinating
Sailors
Hold
Cape
Dangerous
Capes
Women
Enormously
More quotes by H. L. Mencken
Has the art of politics no apparent utility? Does it appear to be unqualifiedly ratty, raffish, sordid, obscene, and low down, andits salient virtuosi a gang of unmitigated scoundrels? Then let us not forget its high capacity to soothe and tickle the midriff, its incomparable services as a maker of entertainment.
H. L. Mencken
Hanging one scoundrel, it appears, does not deter the next. Well, what of it? The first one is at least disposed of.
H. L. Mencken
It is almost impossible for an Anglo-Saxon to write of sex without being dirty.
H. L. Mencken
Capitalism under democracy has a further advantage: its enemies, even when it is attacked, are scattered and weak, and it is usually easily able to array one half of them against the other half, and thus dispose of both.
H. L. Mencken
For it is mutual trust, even more than mutual interest that holds human associations together.
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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.
H. L. Mencken
There are men so philosophical that they can see humor in their own toothaches. But there has never lived a man so philosophical that he could see the toothache in his own humor.
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Man weeps to think that he will die so soon woman, that she was born so long ago.
H. L. Mencken
The average woman must inevitably view her actual husband with a certain disdain he is anything but her ideal. In consequence, she cannot help feeling that her children are cruelly handicapped by the fact that he is their father.
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The truth is that Christian theology, like every other theology, is not only opposed to the scientific spirit it is also opposed to all other attempts at rational thinking.
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Better than the rest of us, they [the Jews] sensed what was ahead for their people.
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Who ever heard, indeed, of an autobiography that was not (interesting)? I can recall none in all the literature of the world
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The American people, I am convinced, really detest free speech. At the slightest alarm they are ready and eager to put it down.
H. L. Mencken
The true function of art is to criticize, embellish and edit natureā¦ the artist is a sort of impassioned proof-reader, blue penciling the bad spelling of God.
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A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin.
H. L. Mencken
Richard Strauss--Old Home Week in Gomorrah
H. L. Mencken
The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out for himself.
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Complete masculinity and stupidity are often indistinguishable.
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A national political campaign is better than the best circus ever heard of, with a mass baptism and a couple of hangings thrown in.
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They have taken the care and upbringing of children out of the hands of parents, where it belongs, and thrown it upon a gang of irresponsible and unintelligent quacks.
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