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Search Results for "H. L. Mencken (1880-1956) "
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H. L. Mencken (1880-1956) :A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin. A prohibitionist is someone one wouldn't want to drink with, even if he did drink. ... After all, all he did was string together a lot of old, well-known quotations. On Shakespeare Alimony: the ransom that the happy pay to the devil. An idealist is one who, on finding that a rose smells better than a cabbage, concludes that it would also make better soup. Conscience is the inner voice that warns us somebody is looking Criticism is prejudice made plausible. Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats. For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong. Imagine the Creator as a low comedian, and at once the world becomes explicable. In this world of sin and sorrow, there is always something to be thankful for; as for me, I rejoice that I am not a Republican. It is hard to believe that a man is telling the truth when you know that you would lie if you were in his place. It is inaccurate to say I hate eveything. I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty, and common decency. This makes me forever ineligible for any public office. It is now quite lawful for a Catholic woman to avoid pregnancy by a resort to mathematics, though she is still forbidden to resort to physics or chemistry. Notebooks, 1956 Legend --- a lie that has attained the dignity of age. Love is the delusion that one woman differs from another. Chrestomathy, 1949 Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence. Men have a much better time of it than women; for one thing, they marry later; for another thing, they die earlier. Mencken and Nathan's Second Law of The Average American: All the postmasters in small towns read all the postcards. One of the merits of democracy is quite obvious: it is perhaps the most charming form of government ever devised by man. The reason is not far to seek. It is based on propositions that are palpably not true -- and what is not true, as everyone knows, is always immensely more fascinating and satisfying to the vast majority of men than what is true. Psychotherapy-the theory that the patient is a damned ijjit and will probably get better anyhow. Say what you will about the Ten Commandments, you must always come back to the pleasant fact that there are only ten of them. The basic fact about human existence is not that it is a tragedy, but that it is a bore. It is not so much a war as an endless standing in line. The penalty for laughing in a courtroom is six months in jail; if it were not for this penalty, the jury would never hear the evidence. Unquestionably, there is progress. The average American now pays out twice as much in taxes as he formerly got in wages. We have our spasms of revolt, our flarings up of peekaboo waists, free love and "art," but a mighty backwash of piety fetches each and every one of them soon or late. The Butte Bashkirtseff What the meaning of human life may be I don't know; I incline to suspect that it has none.
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