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Capitalism under democracy has a further advantage: its enemies, even when it is attacked, are scattered and weak, and it is usually easily able to array one half of them against the other half, and thus dispose of both.

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
Usually
Scattered
Democracy
Attacked
Enemy
Enemies
Half
Capitalism
Able
Easily
Even
Thus
Advantage
Dispose
Weak
Array

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Hanging one scoundrel, it appears, does not deter the next. Well, what of it? The first one is at least disposed of.
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One of the laudable by-products of the Freudian quackery is the discovery that lying, in most cases, is involuntary and inevitable--that the liar can no more avoid it than he can avoid blinking his eyes when a light flashes or jumping when a bomb goes off behind him.
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Osteopath--One who argues that all human ills are caused by the pressure of hard bone upon soft tissue. The proof of his theory isto be found in the heads of those who believe it.
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If there were only three women left in the world, two of them would immediately convene a court-martial to try the other one.
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The sort of man who likes to spend his time watching a cage of monkeys chase one another, or a lion gnaw its tail, or a lizard catch flies, is precisely the sort of man whose mental weakness should be combated at the public expense, not fostered.
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There are no institutions in America: there are only fashions.
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God must love the rich or he wouldn't divide so much among so few of them.
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I give you Chicago. It is not London and Harvard. It is not Paris and buttermilk. It is American in every chitling and sparerib. It is alive from snout to tail.
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No healthy man, in his secret heart, is content with his destiny. He is tortured by dreams and images as a child is tortured by the thought of a state of existence in which it would live in a candy store and have two stomachs.
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Liberty and democracy are eternal enemies, and every one knows it who has ever given any sober reflection to the matter.
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The first kiss is stolen by the man the last is begged by the woman.
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Man is always looking for someone to boast to woman is always looking for a shoulder to put her head on.
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The lunatic fringe wags the underdog.
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When I mount the scaffold at last these will be my farewell words to the sheriff: Say what you will against me when I am gone, but don't forget to add, in common justice, that I was never converted to anything.
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Historian: an unsuccessful novelist.
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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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For it is an absurdity to call a country civilized in which a decent and industrious man, laboriously mastering a trade which is valuble and necessary to the common weal, has no assurance that it will sustain him while he stands ready to practice it, or keep him out of the poorhouse when illness or age makes him idle.
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