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For it is mutual trust, even more than mutual interest that holds human associations together.

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
Human
Distrust
Humans
Association
Even
Holds
Mutual
Ethics
Trust
Interest
Together
Associations

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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.
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One of the laudable by-products of the Freudian quackery is the discovery that lying, in most cases, is involuntary and inevitable--that the liar can no more avoid it than he can avoid blinking his eyes when a light flashes or jumping when a bomb goes off behind him.
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The double standard of morality will survive in this world so long as the woman whose husband has been lured away is favoured with the sympathetic tears of other women, and a man whose wife has made off is laughed at by other men.
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In the main, there are two sorts of books: those that no one reads and those that no one ought to read.
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A great literature is thus chiefly the product of doubting and inquiring minds in revolt against the immovable certainties of the nation.
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Youth, though it may lack knowledge, is certainly not devoid of intelligence it sees through shams with sharp and terrible eyes.
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Man weeps to think that he will die so soon woman, that she was born so long ago.
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There's really no point to voting. If it made any difference, it would probably be illegal.
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He slept more than any other president, whether by day or by night. Nero fiddled, but Coolidge only snored.
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Time is a great legalizer, even in the field of morals
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I believe that it should be perfectly lawful to print even things that outrage the pruderies and prejudices of the general, so long as any honest minority, however small, wants to read them. The remedy of the majority is not prohibition, but avoidance.
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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 only way for a reporter to look at a politician is down.
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For me to go into politics would be like sending a virgin into a house of ill-repute.
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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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[A formula for answering controversial letters -- without even reading the letters:] Dear Sir (or Madame): You may be right.
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A man who knows a subject thoroughly, a man so soaked in it that he eats it, sleeps it and dreams it- this man can always teach it with success, no matter how little he knows of technical pedagogy.
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It doesn't take a majority to make a rebellion it takes only a few determined leaders and a sound cause.
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There are some politicians who, if their constituents were cannibals, would promise them missionaries in every pot.
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The chief knowledge that's man on from reading books is the knowledge that very few of them are worth reading.
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