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Never underestimate the bad taste of the American public

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
American
Never
Underestimate
Taste
Public

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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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Progress: The process whereby the human race has got rid of whiskers, the vermiform appendix and God.
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After all, all he did was string together a lot of old, well-known quotations.
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The most common of all follies is to believe in the palpably untrue.
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I'm thoroughly convinced that editors don't help authors.
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Who ever heard, indeed, of an autobiography that was not (interesting)? I can recall none in all the literature of the world
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I believe in the complete freedom of thought and speech - alike for the humblest man and the mightiest, and in the utmost freedom of conduct that is consistent with living in organized society.
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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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Before a man speaks it is always safe to assume that he is a fool. After he speaks, it is seldom necessary to assume it.
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What restrains us from killing is partly fear of punishment, partly moral scruple, and partly what may be described as a sense of humor
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Whenever a reporter is assigned to cover a Methodist conference, he comes home an atheist.
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I detest converts almost as much as I do missionaries.
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I know of no existing nation that deserves to live, and I know of very few individuals.
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The late William Jennings Bryan, L.L.D., always had one great advantage in controversy he was never burdened with an understanding of his opponent's case.
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He slept more than any other president, whether by day or by night. Nero fiddled, but Coolidge only snored.
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The true function of art is to criticize, embellish and edit nature… the artist is a sort of impassioned proof-reader, blue penciling the bad spelling of God.
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The Catholic clergy seldom bother to make their arguments plausible it is plain that they have little respect for human intelligence, and indeed little belief in its existence.
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I confess I enjoy democracy immensely. It is incomparably idiotic, and hence incomparably amusing.
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There is only one honest impulse at the bottom of Puritanism, and that is the impulse to punish the man with a superior capacity for happiness.
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