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I think the Negro people should feel secure enough by now to face a reasonable ridicule without terror. I am unalterably opposed to all efforts to put down free speech, whatever the excuse.

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
Political
Terror
Unalterably
Without
Excuse
Negro
Enough
Speech
Ridicule
Feel
Effort
Opposed
Feels
Face
Efforts
Think
Whatever
Reasonable
Thinking
Faces
Racism
People
Free
Secure

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Complete masculinity and stupidity are often indistinguishable.
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Democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey cage.
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Jealousy is a keen observer, but looks for all the wrong signs.
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I believe that religion, generally speaking, has been a curse to mankind.
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When a woman says she won't, it's a good sign that she will. And when she says she will, it is an even better sign.
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Platitude: an idea (a) that is admitted to be true by everyone, and (b) that is not true.
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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.
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The first Rotarian was the first man to call John the Baptist Jack.
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When I hear a man applauded by the mob I always feel a pang of pity for him. All he has to do to be hissed is to live long enough.
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Is it hot in the rolling mill? Are the hours long? Is $15 a day not enough? Then escape is easy. Simply throw up your job, spit on your hands, and write another Rosenkavailer.
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How little it takes to make life unbearable: a pebble in the shoe, a cockroach in the spaghetti, a woman's laugh.
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The worst of marriage is that it makes a woman believe that all men are just as easy to fool.
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The aim of New Deals is to exterminate the class of creditors and thrust all men into that of debtors. It is like trying to breedcattle with all cows and no bulls.
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Love begins like a triolet and ends like a college yell.
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At the end of one millennium and nine centuries of Christianity, it remains an unshakable assumption of the law in all Christian countries and of the moral judgement of Christians everywhere that if a man and a woman, entering a room together, close the door behind them, the man will come out sadder and the woman wiser.
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It is only doubt that creates.
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Religion is fundamentally opposed to everything I hold in veneration - courage, clear thinking, honesty, fairness, and, above all, love of the truth.
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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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Nine out of ten Americans are actually monarchists at bottom. The fact is proved by their high suseptibility to political claims by president's sons and other relatives, usually nonentities.
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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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