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Courtroom : A place where Jesus Christ and Judas Iscariot would be equals, with the betting odds favoring Judas.

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
Modern
Jesus
Christ
Favoring
Place
Judas
America
Courtroom
Would
Betting
World
Equals
Odds

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Every man is his own hell.
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To argue that the gaps in knowledge which confront the seeker must be filled, not by patient inquiry, but by intuition or revelation, is simply to give ignorance a gratuitous and preposterous dignity.
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The idea that leisure is of value in itself is only conditionally true. The average man simply spends his leisure as a dog spends it. His recreations are all puerile, and the time supposed to benefit him really only stupefies him.
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What restrains us from killing is partly fear of punishment, partly moral scruple, and partly what may be described as a sense of humor
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The only way for a reporter to look at a politician is down.
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Women always excel men in that sort of wisdom which comes from experience. To be a woman is in itself a terrible experience.
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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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Religion is so absurd that it comes close to imbecility.
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The longest sentence you can form with two words is: I do.
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History deals mainly with captains and kings, gods and prophets, exploiters and despoilers, not with useful men.
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Who will argue that 98.6 Farenheit is the right temperature for man? As for me, I decline to do it. It may be that we are all actually freezing hence the pervading stupidity of mankind. At 110 or 115 degrees even archbishops might be intelligent.
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The Public ... demands certainties ... But there are not certainties
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Friendship is a common belief in the same fallacies, mountebanks and hobgoblins.
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The final test of truth is ridicule. Very few dogmas have ever faced it and survived.
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The believing mind is externally impervious to evidence. The most that can be accomplished with it is to induce it to substitute one delusion for another. It rejects all overt evidence as wicked.
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On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.
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A skeptic as to all ideas, including especially my own, I have never suffered a pang when the ideas of some other imbecile prevailed.
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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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The most satisfying and ecstatic faith is almost purely agnostic. It trusts absolutely without professing to know at all.
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There are no institutions in America: there are only fashions.
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