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All talk of winning the people by appealing to their intelligence, of conquering them by impeccable syllogism, is so much moonshine.

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
Appealing
Conquer
Intelligence
Influence
Winning
Syllogism
Talk
Moonshine
Much
Conquering
People
Impeccable

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If there was ever a dissenter from the national optimismit was surely Edgar Allan Poe--without question the bravest and mostoriginal, if perhaps also the least orderly and judicious, of all the critics that we have produced.
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I confess I enjoy democracy immensely. It is incomparably idiotic, and hence incomparably amusing.
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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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There are some politicians who, if their constituents were cannibals, would promise them missionaries in every pot.
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The central belief of every moron is that he is the victim of a mysterious conspiracy against his common rights and true deserts.
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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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Men always try to make virtues of their weaknesses. Fear of death and fear of life both become piety.
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Complete masculinity and stupidity are often indistinguishable.
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After all, all he did was string together a lot of old, well-known quotations.
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Man is a natural polygamist: he always has one woman leading him by the nose, and another hanging on to his coattails.
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For me to go into politics would be like sending a virgin into a house of ill-repute.
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Liberty is of small value to the lower third of humanity. They greatly prefer security, which means protection by some class above them. They are always in favor of despots who promise to feed them. The only liberty an inferior man really cherishes is the liberty to quit work, stretch out in the sun, and scratch himself.
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There are no dull subjects. There are only dull writers.
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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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