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Sunday is a day given over by Americans to wishing that the themselves were dead and in Heaven, and that their neighbors were dead and in Hell.

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
Given
Neighbors
Sunday
Neighbor
Americans
Dead
Hell
Heaven
Wish
Wishing

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The Christian always swears a bloody oath that he will never do it again. The civilized man simply resolves to be a bit more careful next time.
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It is difficult to imagine anyone having any real hopes for the human race in the face of the fact that the great majority of men still believe that the universe is run by a gaseous vertebrate of astronomical heft and girth, who is nevertheless interested in the minutest details of the private conduct of even the meanest man.
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The only way that a government can provide for jobs for all citizens is by deciding what every man should do.
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At eight or nine, I suppose intelligence is no more than a small spot of light on the floor of a large and murky room.
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The most curious social convention of the great age in which we live is the one to the effect that religious opinions should be respected.
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The objection to Puritans is not that they try to make us think as they do, but that they try to make us do as they think.
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I hate sports the way people who like sports hate common sense.
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The first Rotarian was the first man to call John the Baptist Jack.
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If experience teaches us anything at all, it teaches us this: that a good politician, under democracy, is quite as unthinkable as an honest burglar.
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The verdict of a jury is the a priori opinion of that juror who smokes the worst cigars.
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The worst of marriage is that it makes a woman believe that all men are just as easy to fool.
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A dull, dark, depressing day in Winter: the whole world looks like a Methodist church at Wednesday night prayer meeting.
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A critic is a man who writes about things he doesn't like.
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The fact that a human brain of high amperage, otherwise highly efficient, may have a hole in it is surely not a secret.
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The only liberty an inferior man really cherishes is the liberty to quit work, stretch out in the sun, and scratch himself.
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Liberty and democracy are eternal enemies, and every one knows it who has ever given any sober reflection to the matter.
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Immorality: the morality of those who are having a better time.
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The truly civilized man is always skeptical and tolerant, in this field as in all others. His culture is based on 'I am not too sure'.
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