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To wage a war for a purely moral reason is as absurd as to ravish a woman for a purely moral reason
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
Purely
Absurd
Moral
Peace
Woman
War
Reason
Ravish
Wage
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The most valuable of all human possessions, next to a superior and disdainful air, is the reputation of being well-to-do.
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I believe that religion, generally speaking, has been a curse to mankind.
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The chief knowledge that's man on from reading books is the knowledge that very few of them are worth reading.
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The formula of the argument is simple and familiar: to dispose of a problem all that is necessary is to deny that it exists.
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The highfalutin aims of democracy, whether real or imaginary, are always assumed to be identical with its achievements. This, of course, is sheer hallucination. Not one of those aims, not even the aim of giving every adult a vote, has been realized. It has no more made men wise and free than Christianity has made them good.
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Whenever A annoys or injures B on the pretense of saving or improving X, A is a scoundrel.
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There comes a time in every man's life when he's consumed by the desire to spit on his palms, hoist the black flag and start cutting throats.
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There are some people who read too much: The bibliobibuli.
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Jury - A group of 12 people, who, having lied to the judge about their health, hearing, and business engagements, have failed to fool him.
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I have long been convinced that the idea of liberty is abhorrent to most human beings. What they want is security, not freedom. Thus it seldom causes any public indignation when an enterprising tyrant claps down on one of his enemies. To most men it seems a natural proceeding.
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One horse-laugh is worth ten-thousand syllogisms.
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The capacity of human beings to bore one another seems to be vastly greater than that of any other animal. Some of their most esteemed inventions have no other apparent purpose - for example, the dinner party of more than two, the epic poem, and the science of metaphysics.
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Government is actually the worst failure of civilized man.
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The best years are the forties after fifty a man begins to deteriorate, but in the forties he is at the maximum of his villainy.
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A bad artist almost always tries to conceal his incompetence by whooping up a new formula.
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Laws are no longer made by a rational process of public discussion they are made by a process of blackmail and intimidation, and they are executed in the same manner
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Never argue with a man whose job depends on not being convinced.
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The true aim of medicine is not to make men virtuous it is to safeguard and rescue them from the consequences of their vices. The physician does not preach repentance he offers absolution.
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The intelligent, like the unintelligent, are responsive to propaganda.
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No man ever quite believes in any other man.
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