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I believe that any man who takes the liberty of another into his keeping is bound to become a tyrant, and that any man who yields up his liberty, in however slight the measure, is bound to become a slave.

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
However
Tyrants
Liberty
Yield
Takes
Bound
Freedom
Tyranny
Another
Keeping
Become
Bounds
Yields
Believe
Measure
Tyrant
Men
Slave
Slight

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I detest converts almost as much as I do missionaries.
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A professional politician is a professionally dishonorable man. In order to get anywhere near high office he has to make so many compromises and submit to so many humiliations that he becomes indistinguishable from a streetwalker.
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Looking for an honest politician is like looking for an ethical burglar.
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A large part of altruism, even when it is perfectly honest, is grounded upon the fact that it is uncomfortable to have unhappy people about one.
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I confess I enjoy democracy immensely. It is incomparably idiotic, and hence incomparably amusing.
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Osteopath--One who argues that all human ills are caused by the pressure of hard bone upon soft tissue. The proof of his theory isto be found in the heads of those who believe it.
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The intelligent, like the unintelligent, are responsive to propaganda.
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It is impossible to imagine Goethe or Beethoven being good at billiards or golf.
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The seasick passenger on an ocean liner detests the good sailor who stalks past him 265 times a day grandly smoking a large, greasy cigar. In precisely the same way the democrat hates the man who is having a better time in the world. This is the origin of democracy. It is also the origin of Puritanism.
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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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Socialist: A man suffering from an overwhelming conviction to believe what is not true.
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If, after I depart this vale, you ever remember me and have thought to please my ghost, forgive some sinner and wink your eye at some homely girl.
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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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