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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

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
Prison
Killing
Morality
Restrains
Humor
Scruple
Moral
Scruples
Fear
Partly
Sense
Described
May
Punishment

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The Catholic clergy seldom bother to make their arguments plausible it is plain that they have little respect for human intelligence, and indeed little belief in its existence.
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It is the dull man who is always sure, and the sure man who is always dull.
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There are no institutions in America: there are only fashions.
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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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The ideal Government of all reflective men, from Aristotle onward, is one which lets the individual alone - one which barely escapes being no government at all.
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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 difference between the smartest dog and the stupidest man - say a Tennessee Holy Roller - is really very small.
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There are some people who read too much: The bibliobibuli.
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What is too often forgotten is that nature obviously intends the botched to die, and that every interference with that benign process is full of dangers.
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Government is actually the worst failure of civilized man.
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There is nothing worse than an idle hour, with no occupation offering. People who have many such hours are simply animals waiting docilely for death. We all come to that state soon or late. It is the curse of senility.
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The true bureaucrat is a man of really remarkable talents. He writes a kind of English that is unknown elsewhere in the world, and an almost infinite capacity for forming complicated and unworkable rules.
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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.
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Justice is what you get when you run out of money.
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It is the theory of all modern civilized governments that they protect and foster the liberty of the citizen it is the practice of all of them to limit its exercise, and sometimes very narrowly.
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Free speech is too dangerous to a democracy to be permitted
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If x is the population of the United States and y is the degree of imbecility of the average American, then democracy is the theory that x times y is less than y
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Evil: That which one believes of others. It is a sin to believe evil of others, but it is seldom a mistake
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The truly civilized man is always skeptical and tolerant, in this field as in all others. His culture is based on 'I am not too sure'.
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The basic fact about human existence is not that it is a tragedy, but that it is a bore. It is not so much a war as an endless standing in line.
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