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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.

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
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Literary Critic
Satirist
Social Critic
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Baltimore
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Henry Louis Mencken
Protection
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Men
Small
Quit
Scratch
Class
Thirds
Feed
Scratches
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Sun
Lower
Inferior
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Promise
Quitting
Inferiors
Mean
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Stretch
Work
Security
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Greatly
Really
Liberty
Third
Cherish
Cherishes
Always
Humanity

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Some time ago a publisher told me that there are four kinds of books that seldom, if ever, lose money in the United States--first,murder stories secondly, novels in which the heroine is forcibly overcome by the hero thirdly, volumes on spiritualism, occultism and other such claptrap, and fourthly, books on Lincoln.
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The curse of man, and the cause of nearly all his woe, is his stupendous capacity for believing the incredible.
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When we appropriate money from the public funds to pay for vaccinating a horde of negroes, we do not do it because we have any sympathy for them or because we crave their blessings, but simply because we don't want them to be falling ill of smallpox
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The highfalutin aims of democracy, whether real or imaginary, are always assumed to be identical with its achievements. This, of course, is sheer hallucination. Not one of those aims, not even the aim of giving every adult a vote, has been realized. It has no more made men wise and free than Christianity has made them good.
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When women kiss it always reminds one of prize fighters shaking hands.
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Women have simple tastes. They get pleasure out of the conversation of children in arms and men in love.
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The worshiper is the father of the gods.
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We are here and it is now. Further than that, all human knowledge is moonshine.
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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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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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