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Free speech is too dangerous to a democracy to be permitted
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
Dangerous
Democracy
Free
Permitted
Speech
More quotes by H. L. Mencken
When fanatics are on top there is no limit to oppression.
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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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As if paralyzed by the national fear of ideas, the democratic distrust of whatever strikes beneath the prevailing platitudes, it evades all resolute and honest dealing with what, after all, must be every healthy literature's elementary materials.
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Genius: the ability to prolong one's childhood.
H. L. Mencken
In the main, there are two sorts of books: those that no one reads and those that no one ought to read.
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Save among politicians it is no longer necessary for any educated American to profess belief in Thirteenth Century ideas
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The average man never really thinks from end to end of his life. The mental activity of such people is only a mouthing of clichés.
H. L. Mencken
The penalty for laughing in a courtroom is six months in jail if it were not for this penalty, the jury would never hear the evidence.
H. L. Mencken
No married man is genuinely happy if he has to drink worse whisky than he used to drink when he was single.
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Clergyman: A ticket speculator outside the gates of Heaven.
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I know of no human being who has a better time than an eager and energetic young reporter.
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A great literature is thus chiefly the product of doubting and inquiring minds in revolt against the immovable certainties of the nation.
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It is almost impossible for an Anglo-Saxon to write of sex without being dirty.
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No matter how happily a woman may be married, it always pleases her to discover that there is a nice man who wishes that she were not.
H. L. Mencken
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 more noisy Negro leaders, by depicting all whites as natural and implacable enemies to their race, have done it a great disservice. Large numbers of whites who were formerly very friendly to it, and willing to go to great lengths to help it, are now resentful and suspicious.
H. L. Mencken
Immorality: the morality of those who are having a better time.
H. L. Mencken
The great difficulty about keeping the Ten Commandments is that no man can keep them and be a gentleman.
H. L. Mencken
Good government is that which delivers the citizen from being done out of his life and property too arbitrarily and violently-one that relieves him sufficiently from the barbaric business of guarding them to enable him to engage in gentler, more dignified, and more agreeable undertakings.
H. L. Mencken
The two main ideas that run through all of my writing, whether it be literary criticism or political polemic are these: I am strong in favor of liberty and I hate fraud.
H. L. Mencken
