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The editors are committed to nothing save this: to keep common sense as fast as they can, to belabor sham as agreeably as possible, to give civilized entertainment.

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
Give
Entertainment
Nothing
Fast
Giving
Committed
Save
Agreeably
Possible
Sham
Common
Editors
Sense
Civilized
Keep
Commit

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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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Philadelphia is the most pecksniffian of American cities, and thus probably leads the world.
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The objection to a Communist always resolves itself into the fact that he is not a gentleman.
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In any combat between a rogue and a fool the sympathy of mankind is always with the rogue.
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Time is a great legalizer, even in the field of morals
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Never drink if you've got any work to do. Never.
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The objection to Puritans is not that they try to make us think as they do, but that they try to make us do as they think.
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A bad man is the sort who weeps every time he speaks of a good woman.
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Elections are futures markets in stolen property.
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A man who knows a subject thoroughly, a man so soaked in it that he eats it, sleeps it and dreams it- this man can always teach it with success, no matter how little he knows of technical pedagogy.
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Nature abhors a moron.
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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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The capacity of human beings to bore one another seems to be vastly greater than that of any other animal.
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The course of the United States in World War II, I said, was dishonest, dishonorable, and ignominious, and the Sunpapers, by supporting Roosevelt's foreign policy, shared in this disgrace.
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What we need in this country is a general improvement in eating. We have the best raw materials in the world, both quantitatively and qualitatively, but most of them are ruined in the process of preparing them for the table.
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When I mount the scaffold at last these will be my farewell words to the sheriff: Say what you will against me when I am gone, but don't forget to add, in common justice, that I was never converted to anything.
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Of government, at least in democratic states, it may be said briefly that it is an agency engaged wholesale, and as a matter of solemn duty, in the performance of acts which all self-respecting individuals refrain from as a matter of common decency.
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Economic independence is the foundation of the only sort of freedom worth a damn
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Poetry is a comforting piece of fiction set to more or less lascivious music.
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What men value in this world is not rights but privileges.
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