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It is Hell, of course, that makes priests powerful, not Heaven, for after thousands of years of so-called civilization fear remains the one common denominator of mankind

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
Fear
Inspiration
Makes
Hell
Years
Courses
Denominator
Course
Priests
Called
Thousands
Powerful
Remains
Heaven
Civilization
Common
Mankind

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War is the only sport which is genuinely amusing. And it is the only sport which has any intelligible use.
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Giving every man a vote has no more made men wise and free than Christianity has made them good.
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When you sympathize with a married woman you either make two enemies or gain one wife and one friend.
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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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A free citizen in a free state, it seems to me, has an inalienable right to play with whomsoever he will, so long as he does not disturb the general peace. If any other citizen, offended by the spectacle, makes a pother, then that other citizen, and not the man exercising his inalienable right, should be put down by the police.
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Progress: The process whereby the human race has got rid of whiskers, the vermiform appendix and God.
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