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The pedant and the priest have always been the most expert of logicians - and the most diligent disseminators of nonsense and worse.

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
Always
Diligent
Priest
Expert
Priests
Experts
Nonsense
Logicians
Logic
Pedant
Worse
Pedants

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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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One seldom discovers a true believer that is worth knowing.
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The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out for himself.
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Shave a gorilla and it would be almost impossible, at twenty paces, to distinguish him from a heavyweight champion of the world. Skin a chimpanzee, and it would take an autopsy to prove he was not a theologian.
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I never agree with Communists or any other kind of kept men.
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It is the mission of the pedagogue, not to make his pupils think, but to make them think right, and the more nearly his own mind pulsates with the great ebbs and flows of popular delusion and emotion, the more admirably he performs his function. He may be an ass, but that is surely no demerit in a man paid to make asses of his customers.
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Liberty is of small value to the lower third of humanity. They greatly prefer security, which means protection by some class above them. They are always in favor of despots who promise to feed them. The only liberty an inferior man really cherishes is the liberty to quit work, stretch out in the sun, and scratch himself.
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Never underestimate the bad taste of the American public
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There are two impossibilities in life: just one drink and an honest politician.
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Metaphysics is almost always an attempt to prove the incredible by an appeal to the unintelligible.
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Economic independence is the foundation of the only sort of freedom worth a damn
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My guess is that well over eighty per cent. of the human race goes through life without having a single original thought.
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People do not expect to find chastity in a whorehouse. Why, then, do they expect to find honesty and humanity in government, a congeries of institutions whose modus operandi consists of lying, cheating, stealing, and if need be, murdering those who resist?
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The way to hold a husband is to keep him a little jealous the way to lose him is to keep him a little more jealous.
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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 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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When women kiss it always reminds one of prize fighters shaking hands.
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To believe that Russia has got rid of the evils of capitalism takes a special kind of mind. It is the same kind of mind that believes that a Holy Roller has got rid of sin.
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If the American people really tire of democracy and want to make a trial of Fascism, I shall be the last person to object. But if that is their mood, then they had better proceed toward their aim by changing the Constitution and not by forgetting it.
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Men always try to make virtues of their weaknesses. Fear of death and fear of life both become piety.
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