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The genuine music lover may accept the carnal husk of opera to get at the kernel of actual music within, but that is no sign that he approves the carnal husk or enjoys gnawing through it.

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
Music
Genuine
Gnawing
Lovers
Carnal
Accept
Kernel
Singing
Enjoys
Accepting
Opera
Within
Lover
Enjoy
Actual
Husk
May
Sign
Approves

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The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.
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I detest converts almost as much as I do missionaries.
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Love is like war: easy to begin but very hard to stop.
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Love is an emotion that is based on an opinion of women that is impossible for those who have had any experience with them.
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A great nation is any mob of people which produces at least one honest man a century.
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A politician normally prospers under democracy in proportion ... as he excels in the invention of imaginary perils and imaginary defenses against them.
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The theatre, when all is said and done, is not life in miniature, but life enormously magnified, life hideously exaggerated.
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Legend: A lie that has attained the dignity of age.
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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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I am one of the few goyim who have ever actually tackled the Talmud. I suppose you now expect me to add that it is a profound and noble work, worthy of hard study by all other goyims. Unhappily, my report must differ from this expectation. It seems to me, save for a few bright spots, to be quite indistinguishable from rubbish.
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When women kiss it always reminds one of prize fighters shaking hands.
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My guess is that well over eighty per cent. of the human race goes through life without having a single original thought.
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There are no ugly cigars, only ugly smokers.
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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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I believe that religion, generally speaking, has been a curse to mankind.
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Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.
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