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The Public ... demands certainties ... But there are not certainties

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
Demand
Decision
Public
Certainties
Demands
Certainty

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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 highfalutin aims of democracy, whether real or imaginary, are always assumed to be identical with its achievements. This, of course, is sheer hallucination. Not one of those aims, not even the aim of giving every adult a vote, has been realized. It has no more made men wise and free than Christianity has made them good.
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The chief knowledge that's man on from reading books is the knowledge that very few of them are worth reading.
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Unsuccessful candidates for the Presidency should be quietly hanged as a matter of public sanitation and decorum.
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There are no mute, inglorious Miltons, save in the hallucinations of poets. The one sound test of a Milton is that he functions as a Milton.
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There is always a well-known solution to every human problem - neat, plausible, and wrong.
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Some immemorial imbecilities have been added deliberately, on the ground that it is just as interesting to note how foolish men have been as to note how wise they have been.
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The seasick passenger on an ocean liner detests the good sailor who stalks past him 265 times a day grandly smoking a large, greasy cigar. In precisely the same way the democrat hates the man who is having a better time in the world. This is the origin of democracy. It is also the origin of Puritanism.
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One smart reader is worth a thousand boneheads.
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For me to go into politics would be like sending a virgin into a house of ill-repute.
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All talk of winning the people by appealing to their intelligence, of conquering them by impeccable syllogism, is so much moonshine.
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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.
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The storm center of lawlessness in every American State is the State Capitol. It is there that the worst crimes are committed it is there that lawbreaking attains to the estate and dignity of a learned profession it is there that contempt for the laws is engendered, fostered, and spread broadcast.
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All great religions, in order to escape absurdity, have to admit a dilution of agnosticism. It is only the savage, whether of the African bush or the American gospel tent, who pretends to know the will and intent of God exactly and completely.
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When women kiss it always reminds one of prize fighters shaking hands.
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Pastor: One employed by the wicked to prove to them by his example that virtue doesn't pay.
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I'm thoroughly convinced that editors don't help authors.
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Hygiene is the corruption of medicine by morality.
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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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The other day a dog peed on me. A bad sign.
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