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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
Certainties
Demands
Certainty
Demand
Decision
Public
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At eight or nine, I suppose intelligence is no more than a small spot of light on the floor of a large and murky room.
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The first kiss is stolen by the man the last is begged by the woman.
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No man ever quite believes in any other man. One may believe in an idea absolutely, but not in a man. In the highest confidence there is always a flavor of doubt--a feeling, half instinctive and half logical, that, after all, the scoundrel may have something up his sleeve.
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The idea that leisure is of value in itself is only conditionally true. The average man simply spends his leisure as a dog spends it. His recreations are all puerile, and the time supposed to benefit him really only stupefies him.
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Socialist: A man suffering from an overwhelming conviction to believe what is not true.
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Never drink if you've got any work to do. Never.
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Genius: the ability to prolong one's childhood.
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The capacity of human beings to bore one another seems to be vastly greater than that of any other animal.
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The music critic, Huneber, could never quite make up his mind about a new symphony until he had seen the composer's mistress.
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A sense of humor always withers in the presence of the messianic delusion, like justice and the truth in front of patriotic passion.
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A dull, dark, depressing day in Winter: the whole world looks like a Methodist church at Wednesday night prayer meeting.
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I'm ombibulous. I drink every known alcoholic drink and enjoy them all.
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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 fact that a human brain of high amperage, otherwise highly efficient, may have a hole in it is surely not a secret.
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There are some people who read too much: The bibliobibuli.
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What fetched me instantly (and thousands of other newcomers with me) was the subtle but unmistakable sense of escape from the United States.
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Correct spelling, indeed, is one of the arts that are far more esteemed by schoolma’ams than by practical men, neck-deep in the heat and agony of the world.
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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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Religion is a conceited effort to deny the most obvious realities.
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Governments, whatever their pretensions otherwise, try to preserve themselves by holding the individual down ... Government itself, indeed, may be reasonably defined as a conspiracy against him. Its one permanent aim, whatever its form, is to hobble him sufficiently to maintain itself.
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