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Let no one mistake it for comedy, farcical though it may be in all its details. It serves notice on the country that Neanderthal man is organizing in these forlorn backwaters of the land, led by a fanatic, rid of sense and devoid of conscience.

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
Science
Serves
Neanderthal
Sense
Notice
Farcical
May
Details
Neanderthals
Country
Conscience
Forlorn
Men
Comedy
Fanatic
Mistake
Devoid
Land
Organizing
Though
Fanatics

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The average schoolmaster is and always must be essentially an ass, for how can one imagine an intelligent man engaging in so puerile an avocation.
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The idea that the sole aim of punishment is to prevent crime is obviously grounded upon the theory that crime can be prevented, which is almost as dubious as the notion that poverty can be prevented.
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Experience is a poor guide to man, and is seldom followed. What really teaches a man is not experience, but observation.
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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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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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Culture itself is neither education nor law-making: it is an atmosphere and a heritage.
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One seldom discovers a true believer that is worth knowing.
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The Catholic clergy seldom bother to make their arguments plausible it is plain that they have little respect for human intelligence, and indeed little belief in its existence.
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Conscience is the inner voice that warns us that someone might be looking.
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If women believed in their husbands they would be a good deal happier and also a good deal more foolish.
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Not by accident, you may be sure, do the Christian Scriptures make the father of knowledge a serpent - slimy, sneaking and abominable.
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There are two kinds of music German music and bad music.
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Before a man speaks it is always safe to assume that he is a fool. After he speaks, it is seldom necessary to assume it.
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In human history a moral victory is always a disaster, for it debauches and degrades both the victor and the vanquished.
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Happiness is the china shop love is the bull.
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I never lecture, not because I am shy or a bad speaker, but simply because I detest the sort of people who go to lectures and don't want to meet them.
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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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People constantly speak of 'the government' doing this or that, as they might speak of God doing it. But the government is really nothing but a group of men, and usually they are very inferior men. They may have some better man working for them, but they themselves are seldom worthy of any respect.
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The trouble with Communism is the Communists, just as the trouble with Christianity is the Christians.
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