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[T]here is only one sound argument for democracy, and that is the argument that it is a crime for any man to hold himself out as better than other men, and, above all, a most heinous offense for him to prove it.
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
Hold
Democracy
Sound
Better
Heinous
Men
Offense
Argument
Prove
Crime
More quotes by H. L. Mencken
I never lecture, not because I am shy or a bad speaker, but simply because I detest the sort of people who go to lectures and don't want to meet them.
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The way to hold a husband is to keep him a little jealous the way to lose him is to keep him a little more jealous.
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The trouble with Communism is the Communists, just as the trouble with Christianity is the Christians.
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Democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey cage.
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Poetry is a comforting piece of fiction set to more or less lascivious music.
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Whenever a husband and wife begin to discuss their marriage they are giving evidence at a coroner's inquest.
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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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The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.
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In Baltimore, soft crabs are always fried (or broiled) in the altogether, with maybe a small jock-strap of bacon added.
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The only way that a government can provide for jobs for all citizens is by deciding what every man should do.
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The movies today are too rich to have any room for genuine artists. They produce a few passable craftsmen, but no artists. Can you imagine a Beethoven making $100, 000 a year?
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Hamlet has been played by 5,000 actors, no wonder he is crazy.
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One horse-laugh is worth ten-thousand syllogisms.
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No one hates his job so heartily as a farmer.
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Congress consists of one-third, more or less, scoundrels two-thirds, more or less, idiots and three-thirds, more or less, poltroons.
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No married man is genuinely happy if he has to drink worse whisky than he used to drink when he was single.
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The average man gets his living by such depressing devices that boredom becomes a sort of natural state to him.
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There comes a time in every man's life when he's consumed by the desire to spit on his palms, hoist the black flag and start cutting throats.
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It is almost as safe to assume that an artist of any dignity is against his country, i.e., against the environment in which God hath placed him, as it is to assume that his country is against the artist.
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For it is an absurdity to call a country civilized in which a decent and industrious man, laboriously mastering a trade which is valuble and necessary to the common weal, has no assurance that it will sustain him while he stands ready to practice it, or keep him out of the poorhouse when illness or age makes him idle.
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