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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.

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
Simply
Argue
Gratuitous
Knowledge
Revelations
Preposterous
Give
Intuition
Seeker
Must
Arguing
Seekers
Giving
Patient
Confront
Dignity
Inquiry
Filled
Revelation
Ignorance
Gaps

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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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So few men are really worth knowing, that it seems a shameful waste to let an anthropoid prejudice stand in the way of free association with one who is.
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It is only doubt that creates.
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Never underestimate the bad taste of the American public
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Mankind has failed miserably in its effort to devise a rational system of government. [...] The art of government is the exclusive possession of quacks and frauds. It has been so since the earliest days, and it will probably remain so until the end of time.
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The most costly of all follies is to believe passionately in the palpably not true. It is the chief occupation of mankind.
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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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Friendship is a common belief in the same fallacies, mountebanks and hobgoblins.
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To denounce moralizing out of hand is to pronounce a moral judgment.
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There is something even more valuable to civilization than wisdom, and that is character.
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I write in order to attain that feeling of tension relieved and function achieved which a cow enjoys on giving milk.
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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 Public ... demands certainties ... But there are not certainties
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In human history a moral victory is always a disaster, for it debauches and degrades both the victor and the vanquished.
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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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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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The two main ideas that run through all of my writing, whether it be literary criticism or political polemic are these: I am strong in favor of liberty and I hate fraud.
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The one permanent emotion of the inferior man is fear - fear of the unknown, the complex, the inexplicable. What he wants above everything else is safety.
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The average man never really thinks from end to end of his life. The mental activity of such people is only a mouthing of clichés.
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Poetry is a comforting piece of fiction set to more or less lascivious music.
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