Quote

The theatre, when all is said and done, is not life in miniature, but life enormously magnified, life hideously exaggerated.

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
Theatre
Done
Life
Hideously
Magnified
Miniature
Miniatures
Enormously
Exaggerated

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Legend: A lie that has attained the dignity of age.
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Never argue with a man whose job depends on not being convinced.
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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.
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Elections are futures markets in stolen property.
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The American people, North and South, went into the [Civil] war as citizens of their respective states, they came out as subjects ... what they thus lost they have never got back.
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In every woman's life there is one real and consuming love. But very few women guess which one it is.
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Love is like war: easy to begin but very hard to stop.
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The State doesn't just want you to obey, it wants to make you WANT to obey.
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I can't imagine a genuinely intelligent boy getting much out of college, even out of a good college, save it be a cynical habit of mind.
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Conscience is the inner voice that warns us that someone might be looking.
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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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Next to the semi-colon, quotation marks seem to be the chief butts of reformatory ardor.
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The first kiss is stolen by the man the last is begged by the woman.
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During many a single week, I daresay, more money is spent in New York upon useless and evil things than would suffice to run the kingdom of Denmark for a year.
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The objection of the scandalmonger is not that she tells of racy doings, but that she pretends to be indignant about them.
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It is only doubt that creates.
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Man is a natural polygamist: he always has one woman leading him by the nose, and another hanging on to his coattails.
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The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out for himself.
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Whenever I write anything that sets up controversy its meaning is distorted almost instantly. Even the editorial writers of newspapers seem to be unable to understand the plainest sentence.
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