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The intellectual heritage of the race belongs to the minority.

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
Heritage
Minorities
Belongs
Intellectual
Race
Minority

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The notion that a radical is one who hates his country is naïve and usually idiotic. He is, more likely, one who likes his country more than the rest of us, and is thus more disturbed than the rest of us when he sees it debauched. He is not a bad citizen turning to crime he is a good citizen driven to despair.
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Government is actually the worst failure of civilized man.
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Men always try to make virtues of their weaknesses. Fear of death and fear of life both become piety.
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There are no institutions in America: there are only fashions.
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Let's not burn the universities yet. After all, the damage they do might be worse.
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If x is the population of the United States and y is the degree of imbecility of the average American, then democracy is the theory that x times y is less than y
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It doesn't take a majority to make a rebellion it takes only a few determined leaders and a sound cause.
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Whatever the label on the parties, or the war cries issuing from the demagogues who lead them, the practical choice is between the plutocracy on the one side and a rabble of preposterous impossibilists on the other.
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Religion is a conceited effort to deny the most obvious realities.
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[Referring to FDR] If he became convinced tomorrow that coming out for cannibalism would get him the votes he needs so sorely, he would begin fattening a missionary in the White House yard come Wednesday.
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Courtroom : A place where Jesus Christ and Judas Iscariot would be equals, with the betting odds favoring Judas.
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When I hear a man applauded by the mob I always feel a pang of pity for him. All he has to do to be hissed is to live long enough.
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The chief contribution of Protestantism to human thought is its massive proof that God is a bore.
H. L. Mencken
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It is surely no mere coincidence that the land of the emancipated and enthroned woman is also the land of canned soup, of canned pork and beans, of whole meals in cans, and of everything else ready made.
H. L. Mencken
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To sum up: 1. The cosmos is a gigantic fly-wheel making 10,000 revolutions a minute. 2. Man is a sick fly taking a dizzy ride on it. 3. Religion is the theory that the wheel was designed and set spinning to give him the ride.
H. L. Mencken
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The formula of the argument is simple and familiar: to dispose of a problem all that is necessary is to deny that it exists.
H. L. Mencken
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There are no ugly cigars, only ugly smokers.
H. L. Mencken
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The course of the United States in World War II, I said, was dishonest, dishonorable, and ignominious, and the Sunpapers, by supporting Roosevelt's foreign policy, shared in this disgrace.
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Hygiene is the corruption of medicine by morality.
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Never drink if you've got any work to do. Never.
H. L. Mencken