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A bad artist almost always tries to conceal his incompetence by whooping up a new formula.

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
Artist
Whooping
Trying
Incompetence
Always
Conceal
Competence
Formula
Formulas
Tries
Almost

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Hamlet has been played by 5,000 actors, no wonder he is crazy.
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Women have a hard enough time in this world: telling them the truth would be too cruel.
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There comes a time in every man's life when he's consumed by the desire to spit on his palms, hoist the black flag and start cutting throats.
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Elections are futures markets in stolen property.
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Taxation, for example, is eternally lively it concerns nine-tenths of us more directly than either smallpox or golf, and has just as much drama in it moreover, it has been mellowed and made gay by as many gaudy, preposterous theories
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The most valuable of all human possessions, next to a superior and disdainful air, is the reputation of being well-to-do.
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There is, it appears, a conspiracy of scientists afoot. Their purpose is to break down religion, propagate immorality, and so reduce mankind to the level of brutes. They are the sworn and sinister agents of Beelzebub, who yearns to conquer the world, and has his eye especially upon Tennessee.]
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The essence of self-fulfillment and autonomous culture is an unshakable egotism.
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Life without sex might be safer but it would be unbearably dull
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A politician normally prospers under democracy in proportion ... as he excels in the invention of imaginary perils and imaginary defenses against them.
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Capital punishment has probably been responsible for a good deal of human progress. The overwhelming majority of those executed were of the sort whose departures for bliss eternal improved the average intelligence and decency of the race.
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