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The verdict of a jury is the a priori opinion of that juror who smokes the worst cigars.
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
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Writer
Baltimore
Maryland
Henry Louis Mencken
Cigars
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Smoke
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Worst
Smokes
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Priori
More quotes by H. L. Mencken
The fact that a human brain of high amperage, otherwise highly efficient, may have a hole in it is surely not a secret.
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The only way for a reporter to look at a politician is down.
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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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Say what you will about the ten commandments, you must always come back to the pleasant fact that there are only ten of them.
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The mistake that is made always runs the other way. Because the plain people are able to speak and understand, and even, in many cases, to read and write, it is assumed that they have ideas in their heads, and an appetite for more. This assumption is a folly.
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Every complex problem has a simple solution that doesn't work.
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I have long been convinced that the idea of liberty is abhorrent to most human beings. What they want is security, not freedom. Thus it seldom causes any public indignation when an enterprising tyrant claps down on one of his enemies. To most men it seems a natural proceeding.
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The basic fact about human existence is not that it is a tragedy, but that it is a bore. It is not so much a war as an endless standing in line.
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As the arteries grow hard, the heart grows soft.
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On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.
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To argue that the gaps in knowledge which confront the seeker must be filled, not by patient inquiry, but by intuition or revelation, is simply to give ignorance a gratuitous and preposterous dignity.
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History deals mainly with captains and kings, gods and prophets, exploiters and despoilers, not with useful men.
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Socialist: A man suffering from an overwhelming conviction to believe what is not true.
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But I wonder where we will land if trial judges begin deciding that the fact that a man has committed an atrocious crime is proof sufficient that he is not responsible for his acts.
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The typical lawmaker of today is a man wholly devoid of principle - a mere counter in a grotesque and knavish game. If the right pressure could be applied to him, he would be cheerfully in favor of polygamy, astrology or cannibalism.
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The instant I reach Heaven, I'm going to speak to God very sharply.
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Who ever heard, indeed, of an autobiography that was not (interesting)? I can recall none in all the literature of the world
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Unsuccessful candidates for the Presidency should be quietly hanged as a matter of public sanitation and decorum.
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Justice is what you get when you run out of money.
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No man ever quite believes in any other man. One may believe in an idea absolutely, but not in a man. In the highest confidence there is always a flavor of doubt--a feeling, half instinctive and half logical, that, after all, the scoundrel may have something up his sleeve.
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