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The chief contribution of Protestantism to human thought is its massive proof that God is a bore.
H. L. Mencken -
I believe that it is better to tell the truth than a lie. I believe it is better to be free than to be a slave. And I believe it is better to know than to be ignorant.
H. L. Mencken
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Judge: a law student who marks his own examination-papers.
H. L. Mencken -
Self-respect: the secure feeling that no one, as yet, is suspicious.
H. L. Mencken -
Public opinion, in its raw state, gushes out in the immemorial form of the mob's fear. It is piped into central factories, and there it is flavoured and coloured and put into cans.
H. L. Mencken -
Immorality: the morality of those who are having a better time.
H. L. Mencken -
The objection to Puritans is not that they try to make us think as they do, but that they try to make us do as they think.
H. L. Mencken -
The critic, to interpret his artist, even to understand his artist, must be able to get into the mind of his artist; he must feel and comprehend the vast pressure of the creative passion.
H. L. Mencken
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A good politician is quite as unthinkable as an honest burglar.
H. L. Mencken -
Time stays, we go.
H. L. Mencken -
A society made up of individuals who were all capable of original thought would probably be unendurable.
H. L. Mencken -
A judge is a law student who marks his own examination papers.
H. L. Mencken -
Man is the yokel par excellence, the booby unmatchable, the king dupe of the cosmos. He is chronically and unescapably deceived, not only by the other animals and by the delusive face of nature herself--by his incomparable talent for searching out and embracing what is false, and for overlooking and denying what is true.
H. L. Mencken -
Unquestionably, there is progress. The average American now pays out twice as much in taxes as he formerly got in wages.
H. L. Mencken
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All government, of course, is against liberty.
H. L. Mencken -
The worst government is often the most moral. One composed of cynics is often very tolerant and humane. But when fanatics are on top there is no limit to oppression.
H. L. Mencken -
The American people, I am convinced, really detest free speech. At the slightest alarm they are ready and eager to put it down.
H. L. Mencken -
We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart.
H. L. Mencken -
When you sympathize with a married woman you either make two enemies or gain one wife and one friend.
H. L. Mencken -
One does not arise from such a book as Sister Carrie with a smirk of satisfaction; one leaves it infinitely touched.
H. L. Mencken
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When a new source of taxation is found it never means, in practice, that the old source is abandoned. It merely means that the politicians have two ways of milking the taxpayer where they had one before.
H. L. Mencken -
I know of no American who starts from a higher level of aspiration than the journalist. . . . He plans to be both an artist and a moralist -- a master of lovely words and merchant of sound ideas. He ends, commonly, as the most depressing jackass of his community -- that is, if his career goes on to what is called a success.
H. L. Mencken -
One may no more live in the world without picking up the moral prejudices of the world than one will be able to go to hell without perspiring.
H. L. Mencken -
A national political campaign is better than the best circus ever heard of, with a mass baptism and a couple of hangings thrown in.
H. L. Mencken