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The essential dilemma of education is to be found in the fact that the sort of man (or woman) who knows a given subject sufficiently well to teach it is usually unwilling to do so.

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
Well
Education
Dilemma
Men
Teach
Unwilling
Fact
Essential
Woman
Essentials
Given
Subject
Facts
Subjects
Found
Usually
Wells
Sort
Sufficiently

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The instant I reach Heaven, I'm going to speak to God very sharply.
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What restrains us from killing is partly fear of punishment, partly moral scruple, and partly what may be described as a sense of humor
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War will never cease until babies begin to come into the world with larger cerebrums and smaller adrenal glands.
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A national political campaign is better than the best circus ever heard of, with a mass baptism and a couple of hangings thrown in.
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The believing mind is externally impervious to evidence. The most that can be accomplished with it is to induce it to substitute one delusion for another. It rejects all overt evidence as wicked.
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If a sense of duty tortures a man, it also enables him to achieve prodigies.
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The first Rotarian was the first man to call John the Baptist Jack.
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The longest sentence you can form with two words is: I do.
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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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Save among politicians it is no longer necessary for any educated American to profess belief in Thirteenth Century ideas
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Life without sex might be safer but it would be unbearably dull
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On one issue, at least, men and women agree. They both distrust women.
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Looking for an honest politician is like looking for an ethical burglar.
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Once a woman passes a certain point in intelligence she finds it almost impossible to get a husband: she simply cannot go on listening without snickering.
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Only a jackass ever talks over his affairs with a woman, whether she be his sweetheart, wife, or sister, or mother.
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Wife: one who is sorry she did it, but would undoubtedly do it again.
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What is too often forgotten is that nature obviously intends the botched to die, and that every interference with that benign process is full of dangers.
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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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Experience is a poor guide to man, and is seldom followed. What really teaches a man is not experience, but observation.
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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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