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The natural tendency of every government is to grow steadily worse-that is, to grow more satisfactory to those who constitute it and less satisfactory to those who support 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
Support
Steadily
Less
Constitute
Natural
Tendency
Government
Tendencies
Every
Worse
Grow
Liberty
Grows
Satisfactory

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Whatever the label on the parties, or the war cries issuing from the demagogues who lead them, the practical choice is between the plutocracy on the one side and a rabble of preposterous impossibilists on the other.
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Bridges would not be safer if only people who knew the proper definition of a real number were allowed to design them.
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There are no institutions in America: there are only fashions.
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Man, without a saving touch of woman in him, is too doltish, too naive and romantic, too easily deluded and lulled to sleep by his imagination to be anything above a cavalryman, a theologian or a corporation director.
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No man ever quite believes in any other man. One may believe in an idea absolutely, but not in a man. In the highest confidence there is always a flavor of doubt--a feeling, half instinctive and half logical, that, after all, the scoundrel may have something up his sleeve.
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The motive of fear is the be-all and end-all of religion.
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No professional politician is ever actually in favor of public economy. It is his implacable enemy, and he knows it. All professional politicians are dedicated wholeheartedly to waste and corruption. They are the enemies of every decent man.
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To the best of my knowledge and belief, the average American newspaper, even of the so-called better sort, is not only quite as bad as Upton Sinclair says it is, but 10 times worse
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Temptation is an irresistible force at work on a movable body.
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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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The first kiss is stolen by the man the last is begged by the woman.
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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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Nature abhors a moron.
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God must love the rich or he wouldn't divide so much among so few of them.
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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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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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I never agree with Communists or any other kind of kept men.
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Never drink if you've got any work to do. Never.
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