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Why do men go to zoos?

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
Men
Zoos
Atheism

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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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I have long been convinced that the idea of liberty is abhorrent to most human beings. What they want is security, not freedom. Thus it seldom causes any public indignation when an enterprising tyrant claps down on one of his enemies. To most men it seems a natural proceeding.
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The trouble with Communism is the Communists, just as the trouble with Christianity is the Christians.
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The intellectual heritage of the race belongs to the minority.
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The verdict of a jury is the a priori opinion of that juror who smokes the worst cigars.
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Why do men delight in work? Fundamentally, I suppose, because there is a sense of relief and pleasure in getting something done - a kind of satisfaction not unlike that which a hen enjoys on laying an egg.
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The sort of man who likes to spend his time watching a cage of monkeys chase one another, or a lion gnaw its tail, or a lizard catch flies, is precisely the sort of man whose mental weakness should be combated at the public expense, not fostered.
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Only a jackass ever talks over his affairs with a woman, whether she be his sweetheart, wife, or sister, or mother.
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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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The fact that I have no remedy for all the sorrows of the world is no reason for my accepting yours. It simply supports the strong probability that yours is a fake.
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A national political campaign is better than the best circus ever heard of, with a mass baptism and a couple of hangings thrown in.
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If x is the population of the United States and y is the degree of imbecility of the average American, then democracy is the theory that x times y is less than y
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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 most curious social convention of the great age in which we live is the one to the effect that religious opinions should be respected.
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The older I grow the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom.
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If what I may believe - about gall-stones, the Constitution, castor oil, or God - is conditioned by law, then I am not a free man.
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Communism, like any other revealed religion, is largely made up of prophecies.
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For it is mutual trust, even more than mutual interest that holds human associations together.
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The physical business of writing is unpleasant to me, but the psychic satisfaction of discharging bad ideas in worse English makes me forget it.
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Theology is the effort to explain the unknowable in terms of the not worth knowing.
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