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Suppose two-thirds of the members of the national House of Representatives were dumped into the Washington garbage incinerator tomorrow, what would we lose to offset our gain of their salaries and the salaries of their parasites?

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
Lose
Washington
Loses
Gain
Offset
Suppose
Salaries
House
Thirds
Dumped
Two
Gains
Parasites
Would
National
Salary
Members
Garbage
Tomorrow
Representatives

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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.
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If the average man is made in God's image, then a man such as Beethoven or Aristotle is plainly superior to God, and so God may be jealous of him, and eager to see his superiority perish with his bodily frame.
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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's no underestimating the intelligence of the American public.
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On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.
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Psychotherapy is the theory that the patient will probably get well anyhow and is certainly a damn fool.
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I never agree with Communists or any other kind of kept men.
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As the arteries grow hard, the heart grows soft.
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It is impossible to imagine the universe run by a wise, just and omnipotent God, but it is quite easy to imagine it run by a board of gods.
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No romantic novel ever written in America, by man or woman, is one half so beautiful as My Ántonia.
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When I think of anything properly describable as a beautiful idea, it is always in the form of music. I have written and printed probably 10,000,000 words in English but all the same I shall die an inarticulate man, for my best ideas beset me in a language I know only vaguely and speak only as a child.
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Immorality: the morality of those who are having a better time.
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Every autobiography ... becomes an absorbing work of fiction, with something of the charm of a cryptogram.
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The effect of every sort of New Deal is to increase and prosper the criminal class. It teaches precisely what all professional criminals believe, to wit, that, it is neither virtuous nor necessary to suffer and to do without.
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Correct spelling, indeed, is one of the arts that are far more esteemed by schoolma’ams than by practical men, neck-deep in the heat and agony of the world.
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