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Friendship is a common belief in the same fallacies, mountebanks and hobgoblins.

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
Fallacies
Fallacy
Friendship
Belief
Friends
Common

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Socialist: A man suffering from an overwhelming conviction to believe what is not true.
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High-toned humanitarians constantly overestimate the sufferings of those they sympathize with.
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The two main ideas that run through all of my writing, whether it be literary criticism or political polemic are these: I am strong in favor of liberty and I hate fraud.
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It is my conviction that no normal man ever fell in love, within the ordinary meaning of the term, after the age of thirty.
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Watching two women kiss is like watching two prizefighters shake hands.
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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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I believe that any man who takes the liberty of another into his keeping is bound to become a tyrant, and that any man who yields up his liberty, in however slight the measure, is bound to become a slave.
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Not by accident, you may be sure, do the Christian Scriptures make the father of knowledge a serpent - slimy, sneaking and abominable.
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Pedagogues: More than any other class of blind leaders of the blind they are responsible for the degrading standardization which now afflicts the American people.
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Every man is his own hell.
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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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Nine times out of ten, in the arts as in life, there is actually no truth to be discovered there is only error to be exposed.
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There are no dull subjects. There are only dull writers.
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People constantly speak of 'the government' doing this or that, as they might speak of God doing it. But the government is really nothing but a group of men, and usually they are very inferior men. They may have some better man working for them, but they themselves are seldom worthy of any respect.
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We suffer most when the White House busts with ideas.
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There is, it appears, a conspiracy of scientists afoot. Their purpose is to break down religion, propagate immorality, and so reduce mankind to the level of brutes. They are the sworn and sinister agents of Beelzebub, who yearns to conquer the world, and has his eye especially upon Tennessee.]
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I know of no human being who has a better time than an eager and energetic young reporter.
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Love is an emotion that is based on an opinion of women that is impossible for those who have had any experience with them.
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Complete masculinity and stupidity are often indistinguishable.
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The older I grow the less I esteem mere ideas. In politics, particularly, they are transient and unimportant. . . . There are only men who have character and men who lack it.
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