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Confidence: The feeling that makes one believe a man, even when one knows that one would lie in his place

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
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Literary Critic
Satirist
Social Critic
Writer
Baltimore
Maryland
Henry Louis Mencken
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Believe
Confidence
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Feeling
Men
Lying
Feelings
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If there were only three women left in the world, two of them would immediately convene a court-martial to try the other one.
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If the average man is made in God's image, then a man such as Beethoven or Aristotle is plainly superior to God, and so God may be jealous of him, and eager to see his superiority perish with his bodily frame.
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There are some people who read too much: the bibliobibuli. I know some who are constantly drunk on books, as other men are drunk on whiskey or religion. They wander through this most diverting and stimulating of worlds in a haze, seeing nothing and hearing nothing.
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It is impossible to imagine the universe run by a wise, just and omnipotent God, but it is quite easy to imagine it run by a board of gods.
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The lunatic fringe wags the underdog.
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Men always try to make virtues of their weaknesses. Fear of death and fear of life both become piety.
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All the great villainies of history, from the murder of Abel onward, have been perpetrated by sober men, chiefly by Teetotalers.
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Whenever a husband and wife begin to discuss their marriage they are giving evidence at a coroner's inquest.
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The truth is that Christian theology, like every other theology, is not only opposed to the scientific spirit it is also opposed to all other attempts at rational thinking.
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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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A large part of altruism, even when it is perfectly honest, is grounded upon the fact that it is uncomfortable to have unhappy people about one.
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Happiness is the china shop love is the bull.
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The late William Jennings Bryan, L.L.D., always had one great advantage in controversy he was never burdened with an understanding of his opponent's case.
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Clergyman: A ticket speculator outside the gates of Heaven.
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Conscience is the inner voice that warns us that someone might be looking.
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Let's not burn the universities yet. After all, the damage they do might be worse.
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I confess I enjoy democracy immensely. It is incomparably idiotic, and hence incomparably amusing.
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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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Every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods.
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