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Psychotherapy is the theory that the patient will probably get well anyhow and is certainly a damn fool.

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
Certainly
Fool
Theory
Probably
Wells
Anyhow
Well
Psychotherapy
Damn
Patient

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The common notion that free speech prevails in the United States always makes me laugh.
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To the extent that I am genuinely educated, I am suspicious of all the things that the average citizen believes and the average pedagogue teaches.
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The only way that a government can provide for jobs for all citizens is by deciding what every man should do.
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The only liberty an inferior man really cherishes is the liberty to quit work, stretch out in the sun, and scratch himself.
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Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under.
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The difference between a moral man and a man of honor is that the latter regrets a discreditable act, even when it has worked and he has not been caught.
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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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Some immemorial imbecilities have been added deliberately, on the ground that it is just as interesting to note how foolish men have been as to note how wise they have been.
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Science, at bottom, is really anti-intellectual. It always distrusts pure reason, and demands the production of objective fact.
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I am one of the few goyim who have ever actually tackled the Talmud. I suppose you now expect me to add that it is a profound and noble work, worthy of hard study by all other goyims. Unhappily, my report must differ from this expectation. It seems to me, save for a few bright spots, to be quite indistinguishable from rubbish.
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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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The theory seems to be that as long as a man is a failure he is one of God's children, but that as soon as he succeeds he is taken over by the Devil.
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One horse-laugh is worth ten-thousand syllogisms.
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Religion is fundamentally opposed to everything I hold in veneration - courage, clear thinking, honesty, fairness, and, above all, love of the truth.
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The first kiss is stolen by the man the last is begged by the woman.
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The most valuable of all human possessions, next to a superior and disdainful air, is the reputation of being well-to-do.
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Has the art of politics no apparent utility? Does it appear to be unqualifiedly ratty, raffish, sordid, obscene, and low down, andits salient virtuosi a gang of unmitigated scoundrels? Then let us not forget its high capacity to soothe and tickle the midriff, its incomparable services as a maker of entertainment.
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