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There are two impossibilities in life: just one drink and an honest politician.
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
Drink
Honest
Two
Life
Impossibilities
Impossibility
Drinking
Politician
More quotes by H. L. Mencken
High-toned humanitarians constantly overestimate the sufferings of those they sympathize with.
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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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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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Immorality: the morality of those who are having a better time.
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A poet over 30 is pathetic
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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 ideal Government of all reflective men, from Aristotle onward, is one which lets the individual alone - one which barely escapes being no government at all.
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In Baltimore, soft crabs are always fried (or broiled) in the altogether, with maybe a small jock-strap of bacon added.
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One horse-laugh is worth ten-thousand syllogisms.
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Why writers write I do not know. As well ask why a hen lays an egg or why a cow stands patiently while an underprivileged farmer burglarizes her.
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Hamlet has been played by 5,000 actors, no wonder he is crazy.
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Without a doubt there are women who would vote intelligently. There are also men who knit socks beautifully.
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If the average man is made in God's image, then a man such as Beethoven or Aristotle is plainly superior to God, and so God may be jealous of him, and eager to see his superiority perish with his bodily frame.
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The great difficulty about keeping the Ten Commandments is that no man can keep them and be a gentleman.
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During many a single week, I daresay, more money is spent in New York upon useless and evil things than would suffice to run the kingdom of Denmark for a year.
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Love is photogenic. It needs darkness room to develop
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Jury - A group of 12 people, who, having lied to the judge about their health, hearing, and business engagements, have failed to fool him.
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What is too often forgotten is that nature obviously intends the botched to die, and that every interference with that benign process is full of dangers.
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The common notion that free speech prevails in the United States always makes me laugh.
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Philadelphia is the most pecksniffian of American cities, and thus probably leads the world.
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