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All the great villainies of history, from the murder of Abel onward, have been perpetrated by sober men, chiefly by Teetotalers.

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
Great
Onward
Men
Chiefly
Culinary
Sober
Cooking
Teetotalers
Murder
Abel
Food
Perpetrated
History
Villainy

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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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Skin diseases are something doctors like, the patient neither dies nor gets well.
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If women believed in their husbands they would be a good deal happier and also a good deal more foolish.
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A judge is a law student who marks his own examination papers.
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I well recall my horror when I heard for the first time, of a journalist who had laid in a pair of what were then called bicycle pants and taken to golf it was as if I had encountered a studhorse with his hair done up in frizzes, and pink bowknots peeking out of them. It seemed, in some vague way, ignominious, and even a bit indelicate.
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High-toned humanitarians constantly overestimate the sufferings of those they sympathize with.
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Jealousy is a keen observer, but looks for all the wrong signs.
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But I wonder where we will land if trial judges begin deciding that the fact that a man has committed an atrocious crime is proof sufficient that he is not responsible for his acts.
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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 worst government is often the most moral. One composed of cynics is often very tolerant and humane. But when fanatics are on top there is no limit to oppression.
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I believe that no discovery of fact, however trivial, can be wholly useless to the race, and that no trumpeting of falsehood, however virtuous in intent, can be anything but vicious.
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When you sympathize with a married woman you either make two enemies or gain one wife and one friend.
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The editors are committed to nothing save this: to keep common sense as fast as they can, to belabor sham as agreeably as possible, to give civilized entertainment.
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Man, without a saving touch of woman in him, is too doltish, too naive and romantic, too easily deluded and lulled to sleep by his imagination to be anything above a cavalryman, a theologian or a corporation director.
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The argument that capital punishment degrades the state is moonshine, for if that were true then it would degrade the state to send men to war... The state, in truth, is degraded in its very nature: a few butcheries cannot do it any further damage.
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Government is actually the worst failure of civilized man.
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The only way for a reporter to look at a politician is down.
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