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The difference between the smartest dog and the stupidest man - say a Tennessee Holy Roller - is really very small.

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
Really
Smartest
Men
Tennessee
Dog
Atheism
Difference
Holy
Differences
Stupidest
Small
Roller

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Genius: the ability to prolong one's childhood.
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Love is like war: easy to begin but very hard to stop.
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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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Our literature, despite several false starts that promised much, is chiefly remarkable, now as always, for its respectable mediocrity.
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The doctrine that the cure for the evils of democracy is more democracy is like saying that the cure of crime is more crime.
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A free citizen in a free state, it seems to me, has an inalienable right to play with whomsoever he will, so long as he does not disturb the general peace. If any other citizen, offended by the spectacle, makes a pother, then that other citizen, and not the man exercising his inalienable right, should be put down by the police.
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The idea that the sole aim of punishment is to prevent crime is obviously grounded upon the theory that crime can be prevented, which is almost as dubious as the notion that poverty can be prevented.
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Women always excel men in that sort of wisdom which comes from experience. To be a woman is in itself a terrible experience.
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The genuine music lover may accept the carnal husk of opera to get at the kernel of actual music within, but that is no sign that he approves the carnal husk or enjoys gnawing through it.
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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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Richard Strauss--Old Home Week in Gomorrah
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The State doesn't just want you to obey, it wants to make you WANT to obey.
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My belief in free speech is so profound that I am seldom tempted to deny it to the other fellow. Nor do I make any effort to differentiate between the other fellow right and that other fellow wrong, for I am convinced that free speech is worth nothing unless it includes a full franchise to be foolish and even...malicious.
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