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It Is Common To Assume That Human Progress Affects Everyone - That Even The Dullest Man, In These Bright Days, Knows More Than Any Man Of, Say, The Eighteenth Century, And Is Far More Civilized. This Assumption Is Quite Erroneous. . . . The Great Masses Of Men, Even In This Inspired Republic, Are Precisely Where The Mob Was At The Dawn Of History. They Are Ignorant, They Are Dishonest, They Are Cowardly, They Are Ignoble. They Know Little If Anything That Is Worth Knowing, And There Is Not The Slightest Sign Of A Natural Desire Among Them To Increase Their Knowledge.

-H. L. Mencken

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It Is Common To

H. L. Mencken

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It Is Common To Assume That Human Progress Affects Everyone - That Even The Dullest Man, In These Bright Days, Knows More Than Any Man Of, Say, The Eighteenth Century, And Is Far More Civilized. This Assumption Is Quite Erroneous. . . . The Great Masses Of Men, Even In This Inspired Republic, Are Precisely Where The Mob Was At The Dawn Of History. They Are Ignorant, They Are Dishonest, They Are Cowardly, They Are Ignoble. They Know Little If Anything That Is Worth Knowing, And There Is Not The Slightest Sign Of A Natural Desire Among Them To Increase Their Knowledge.

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Democracy Is Only A Dream: It Should Be Put In The Same Category As Arcadia, Santa Claus, And Heaven.

One Is Conscious Of No Brave And Noble Earnestness In It, Of No Generalized Passion For Intellectual And Spiritual Adventure, Of No Organized Determination To Think Things Out. What Is There Is A Highly Self-conscious And Insipid Correctness, A Bloodless Respectability Submergence Of Matter In Manner--in Brief, What Is There Is The Feeble, Uninspiring Quality Of German Painting And English Music.

Lawyer: One Who Protects Us Against Robbery By Taking Away The Temptation.

Sin Is A Dangerous Toy In The Hands Of The Virtuous. It Should Be Left To The Congenitally Sinful, Who Know When To Play With It And When To Let It Alone.

If All The Lawyers Were Hanged Tomorrow, And Their Bones Were Sold To A Mah Jong Factory, We'd All Be Freer And Safer, And Our Taxes Would Be Reduced By Almost A Half.

Happiness, Like Health, Is Probably Also Only A Passing Accident. For A Moment Or Two The Organism Is Irritated So Little That It Is Not Conscious Of It; For The Duration Of That Moment It Is Happy. Thus A Hog Is Always Happier Than A Man, And A Bacillus Is Happier Than A Hog

The Fact Is That Liberty, In Any True Sense, Is A Concept That Lies Quite Beyond The Reach Of The Inferior Man's Mind. And No Wonder, For Genuine Liberty Demands Of Its Votaries A Quality He Lacks Completely, And That Is Courage. The Man Who Loves It Must Be Willing To Fight For It; Blood, Said Jefferson, Is Its Natural Manure. Liberty Means Self-reliance, It Means Resolution, It Means The Capacity For Doing Without . . . The Average Man Doesn't Want To Be Free. He Wants To Be Safe.

Truth - Something Somehow Discreditable To Someone.

I Believe That No Discovery Of Fact, However Trivial, Can Be Wholly Useless To The Race, And That No Trumpeting Of Falsehood, However Virtuous In Intent, Can Be Anything But Vicious.

What Restrains Us From Killing Is Partly Fear Of Punishment, Partly Moral Scruple, And Partly What May Be Described As A Sense Of Humor

Our Whole Practical Government Is Grounded In Mob Psychology And The Boobus Americanus Will Follow Any Command That Promises To Make Him Safer.

A Woman Wishes To Mother A Man Simply Because She Sees Into His Helplessness, His Need Of An Amiable Environment, His Touching Self-delusion.

The Most Disgusting Cad In The World Is The Man Who On The Grounds Of Decorum And Morality Avoids The Game Of Love. He Is One Who Puts His Own Ease And Security Above The Most Laudable Of Philanthropies.

Nature Abhors A Moron.

It Is Not Materialism That Is The Chief Curse Of The World, As Pastors Teach, But Idealism. Men Get Into Trouble By Taking Their Visions And Hallucinations Too Seriously.

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 Fundamental Trouble With Marriage Is That It Shakes A Man's Confidence In Himself, And So Greatly Diminishes His General Competence And Effectiveness. His Habit Of Mind Becomes That Of A Commander Who Has Lost A Decisive And Calamitous Battle. He Quite Trusts Himself Thereafter.

Penetrating So Many Secrets, We Cease To Believe In The Unknowable. But There It Sits Nevertheless, Calmly Licking Its Chops

One Horse-laugh Is Worth Ten Thousand Syllogisms. It Is Not Only More Effective; It Is Also Vastly More Intelligent.

The State Is Not Force Alone. It Depends Upon The Credulity Of Man Quite As Much As Upon His Docility. Its Aim Is Not Merely To Make Him Obey, But Also To Make Him Want To Obey.

A Progressive Is One Who Is In Favor Of More Taxes Instead Of Less, More Bureaus And Jobholders, More Paternalism And Meddling, More Regulation Of Private Affairs And Less Liberty. In General, He Would Be Inclined To Regard The Repeal Of Any Tax As Outrageous.

The Thing Constantly Overlooked By Those Hopefuls Who Talk About Abolishing War Is That It Is By No Means An Evidence Of Decay But Rather A Proof Of Health And Vigor.

A Man Always Remembers His First Love With Special Tenderness, But After That He Begins To Bunch Them.

The Only Way For A Reporter To Look At A Politician Is Down.

I Go On Working For The Same Reason That A Hen Goes On Laying Eggs. There Is In Every Living Creature An Obscure But Powerful Impulse To Active Functioning. Life Demands To Be Lived. Inaction, Save As A Measure Of Recuperation Between Bursts Of Activity, Is Painful And Dangerous To The Healthy Organism- In Fact, It Is Almost Impossible. Only The Dying Can Be Really Idle.

I Believe That Religion, Generally Speaking, Has Been A Curse To Mankind.

I Confess I Enjoy Democracy Immensely. It Is Incomparably Idiotic, And Hence Incomparably Amusing.

If There Had Been Any Formidable Body Of Cannibals In The Country, Harry Truman Would Have Promised To Provide Them With Free Missionaries Fattened At The Taxpayer's Expense.

All Government, In Its Essence, Is A Conspiracy Against The Superior Man: It's One Permanent Object Is To Oppress Him And Cripple Him... One Of Its Primary Functions Is To Regiment Men By Force, To Make Them As Much Alike As Possible And As Dependent Upon One Another As Possible, To Search Out And Combat Originality Among Them.

Conscience Is A Mother-in-law Whose Visit Never Ends.

A Sunday School Is A Prison In Which Children Do Penance For The Evil Conscience Of Their Parents.

As The Arteries Grow Hard, The Heart Grows Soft.

The Most Curious Social Convention Of The Great Age In Which We Live Is The One To The Effect That Religious Opinions Should Be Respected.

Philosophy Consists Very Largely Of One Philosopher Arguing That All Others Are Jackasses. He Usually Proves It, And I Should Add That He Also Usually Proves That He Is One Himself.

Nothing Can Come Out Of An Artist That Is Not In The Man.

Henry James Would Have Been Vastly Improved As A Novelist By A Few Whiffs Of The Chicago Stockyard.

America's Biggest Failure Is Its Inability To Take Comedy Seriously.

The Learned Are Seldom Pretty Fellows, And In Many Cases Their Appearance Tends To Discourage A Love Of Study In The Young.

Temptation Is An Irresistible Force At Work On A Movable Body.

How To Drink Like A Gentleman: The Things To Do And The Things Not To, As Learned In 30 Years' Extensive Research.

There Are Some People Who Read Too Much: The Bibliobibuli.

The Instant I Reach Heaven, I'm Going To Speak To God Very Sharply.

If A Sense Of Duty Tortures A Man, It Also Enables Him To Achieve Prodigies.

There's No Underestimating The Intelligence Of The American Public.

There Is No Idea So Stupid That You Can't Find A Professor Who Will Believe It.

The Most Dangerous Man To Any Government Is The Man Who Is Able To Think Things Out For Himself.

Lying Is Not Only Excusable; It Is Not Only Innocent; It Is, Above All, Necessary And Unavoidable. Without The Ameliorations That It Offers, Life Would Become A Mere Syllogism And Hence Too Metallic To Be Borne.

The One Permanent Emotion Of The Inferior Man Is Fear - Fear Of The Unknown, The Complex, The Inexplicable. What He Wants Above Everything Else Is Safety.

That It Should Still Be Necessary, At This Late Stage In The Senility Of The Human Race To Argue That Women Have A Fine And Fluent Intelligence Is Surely An Eloquent Proof Of The Defective Observation, Incurable Prejudice, And General Imbecility Of Their Lords And Masters.

History Deals Mainly With Captains And Kings, Gods And Prophets, Exploiters And Despoilers, Not With Useful Men.

Sunday Is A Day Given Over By Americans To Wishing That The Themselves Were Dead And In Heaven, And That Their Neighbors Were Dead And In Hell.

The Double Standard Of Morality Will Survive In This World So Long As The Woman Whose Husband Has Been Lured Away Is Favoured With The Sympathetic Tears Of Other Women, And A Man Whose Wife Has Made Off Is Laughed At By Other Men.

The Believing Mind Reaches Its Perihelion In The So-called Liberals. They Believe In Each And Every Quack Who Sets Up His Booth Inthe Fairgrounds, Including The Communists. The Communists Have Some Talents Too, But They Always Fall Short Of Believing In The Liberals.

The Final Test Of Truth Is Ridicule. Very Few Dogmas Have Ever Faced It And Survived.

Life Without Sex Might Be Safer But It Would Be Unbearably Dull

Our Literature, Despite Several False Starts That Promised Much, Is Chiefly Remarkable, Now As Always, For Its Respectable Mediocrity.

I Well Recall My Horror When I Heard For The First Time, Of A Journalist Who Had Laid In A Pair Of What Were Then Called Bicycle Pants And Taken To Golf; It Was As If I Had Encountered A Studhorse With His Hair Done Up In Frizzes, And Pink Bowknots Peeking Out Of Them. It Seemed, In Some Vague Way, Ignominious, And Even A Bit Indelicate.

Wife: One Who Is Sorry She Did It, But Would Undoubtedly Do It Again.

In Any Combat Between A Rogue And A Fool The Sympathy Of Mankind Is Always With The Rogue.

Socialism: Nothing More Than The Theory That The Slave Is Always More Virtuous Than His Master.

The Jews Could Be Put Down Very Plausibly As The Most Unpleasant Race Ever Heard Of. As Commonly Encountered They Lack Any Of The Qualities That Mark The Civilized Man: Courage, Dignity, Incorruptibility, Ease, Confidence. They Have Vanity Without Pride, Voluptuousness Without Taste, And Learning Without Wisdom. Their Fortitude, Such As It Is, Is Wasted Upon Puerile Objects, And Their Charity Is Mainly A Form Of Display.

The Common Notion That Free Speech Prevails In The United States Always Makes Me Laugh.

To Argue That The Gaps In Knowledge Which Confront The Seeker Must Be Filled, Not By Patient Inquiry, But By Intuition Or Revelation, Is Simply To Give Ignorance A Gratuitous And Preposterous Dignity.

There Is Only One Justification For Having Sinned, And That Is To Be Glad Of It.

There Is Nothing Worse Than An Idle Hour, With No Occupation Offering. People Who Have Many Such Hours Are Simply Animals Waiting Docilely For Death. We All Come To That State Soon Or Late. It Is The Curse Of Senility.

I Believe That All Government Is Evil, And That Trying To Improve It Is Largely A Waste Of Time.

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Here Is Something That The Psychologists Have So Far Neglected: The Love Of Ugliness For Its Own Sake, The Lust To Make The World Intolerable. Its Habitat Is The United States. Out Of The Melting Pot Emerges A Race Which Hates Beauty As It Hates Truth.

You Come Into The World With Nothing, And The Purpose Of Your Life Is To Make Something Out Of Nothing.

Next To The Semi-colon, Quotation Marks Seem To Be The Chief Butts Of Reformatory Ardor.

Quotation Marks

God Must Love The Rich Or He Wouldn't Divide So Much Among So Few Of Them.

The Gettysburg Adress Has Been Included, Of Late, In Several Anthologies Of Poetry. It Actually Meets The Major Requirement Of All Poetry: It Is A Mellifluous And Emotional Statement Of The Obviously Not True. The Men Who Fought For Self-determination At Gettysburg Were Not The Federals But The Confederates.

There Is Always A Sheet Of Paper. There Is Always A Pen. There Is Always A Way Out.

Conscience Is The Accumulated Sediment Of Ancestral Faint- Heartedness

A Sense Of Humor Always Withers In The Presence Of The Messianic Delusion, Like Justice And The Truth In Front Of Patriotic Passion.

It Doesn't Take A Majority To Make A Rebellion; It Takes Only A Few Determined Leaders And A Sound Cause.

Love Is Like War: Easy To Begin But Very Hard To Stop.

What Is The Professor's Function? To Pass On To Numskulls A Body Of So-called Knowledge That Is Fragmentary, Unimportant, And Largely Untrue.

A Woman Usually Respects Her Father, But Her View Of Her Husband Is Mingled With Contempt, For She Is Of Course Privy To The Transparent Devices By Which She Snared Him.

I Hate Sports The Way People Who Like Sports Hate Common Sense.

A Professor Must Have A Theory As A Dog Must Have Fleas.

The Truth, Indeed, Is Something That Mankind, For Some Mysterious Reason, Instinctively Dislikes. Every Man Who Tries To Tell It Is Unpopular, And Even When, By The Sheer Strength Of His Case, He Prevails, He Is Put Down As A Scoundrel.

We Must Be Willing To Pay A Price For Freedom.

The More A Man Dreams, The Less He Believes.

Happiness Is Peace After Strife, The Overcoming Of Difficulties, The Feeling Of Security And Well-being. The Only Really Happy Folk Are Married Women And Single Men.

No Romantic Novel Ever Written In America, By Man Or Woman, Is One Half So Beautiful As My Ántonia.

Each Party Steals So Many Articles Of Faith From The Other, And The Candidates Spend So Much Time Making Each Other's Speeches, That By The Time Election Day Is Past There Is Nothing Much To Do Save Turn The Sitting Rascals Out And Let A New Gang In.

It Is The Mission Of The Pedagogue, Not To Make His Pupils Think, But To Make Them Think Right, And The More Nearly His Own Mind Pulsates With The Great Ebbs And Flows Of Popular Delusion And Emotion, The More Admirably He Performs His Function. He May Be An Ass, But That Is Surely No Demerit In A Man Paid To Make Asses Of His Customers.

It Is [a Politician's] Business To Get And Hold His Job At All Costs. If He Can Hold It By Lying, He Will Hold It By Lying; If Lying Peters Out, He Will Try To Hold It By Embracing New Truths. His Ear Is Ever Close To The Ground.

Moral Certainty Is Always A Sign Of Cultural Inferiority. The More Uncivilized The Man, The Surer He Is That He Knows Precisely What Is Right And What Is Wrong.

Man Is A Beautiful Machine That Works Very Badly. He Is Like A Watch Of Which The Most That Can Be Said Is That Its Cosmetic Effect Is Good.

It Seems To Me That You Are Better Off, As A Writer And As An American, In A Small Town Than You'd Be In New York. I Thoroughly Detest New York, Though I Have To Go There Very Often.... Have You Ever Noticed That No American Writer Of Any Consequence Lives In Manhattan? Dreiser Tried It (after Many Years In The Bronx), But Finally Moved To California.

The Notion That Artists Flourish Upon Adversity And Misunderstanding, That They Are Able To Function To The Utmost In An Atmosphere Of Indifference Or Hostility - This Notion Is Nine-tenths Nonsense.

The Physical Business Of Writing Is Unpleasant To Me, But The Psychic Satisfaction Of Discharging Bad Ideas In Worse English Makes Me Forget It.

There Are No Mute, Inglorious Miltons, Save In The Hallucinations Of Poets. The One Sound Test Of A Milton Is That He Functions As A Milton.

There Are Two Kinds Of Europeans: The Smart Ones, And Those Who Stayed Behind.

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.

Who Will Argue That 98.6 Farenheit Is The Right Temperature For Man? As For Me, I Decline To Do It. It May Be That We Are All Actually Freezing Hence The Pervading Stupidity Of Mankind. At 110 Or 115 Degrees Even Archbishops Might Be Intelligent.

To The Best Of My Knowledge And Belief, The Average American Newspaper, Even Of The So-called Better Sort, Is Not Only Quite As Bad As Upton Sinclair Says It Is, But 10 Times Worse, 10 Times As Ignorant, 10 Times As Unfair And Tyrannical, 10 Times As Complaisant And Pusillanimous, And 10 Times As Devious, Hypocritical, Disingenuous, Deceitful, Pharisaical, Pecksniffian, Fraudulent, Slippery, Unscrupulous, Perfidious, Lewd And Dishonest.

I Never Smoked A Cigarette Until I Was Nine.

For The Habitual Truth-teller And Truth-seeker, Indeed, The Whole World Has Very Little Liking. He Is Always Unpopular.

Every Decent Man Is Ashamed Of The Government He Lives Under.

The Older I Get The More I Admire And Crave Competence, Just Simple Competence, In Any Field From Adultery To Zoology.

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.

[a Formula For Answering Controversial Letters -- Without Even Reading The Letters:] Dear Sir (or Madame): You May Be Right.

Women Have A Hard Enough Time In This World: Telling Them The Truth Would Be Too Cruel.

What I Got In Sunday School ... Was Simply A Firm Conviction That The Christian Faith Was Full Of Palpable Absurdities, And The Christian God Preposterous.... The Act Of Worship, As Carried On By Christians, Seems To Me To Be Debasing Rather Than Ennobling. It Involves Groveling Before A Being Who, If He Really Exists, Deserves To Be Denounced Instead Of Respected.

The Verdict Of A Jury Is The A Priori Opinion Of That Juror Who Smokes The Worst Cigars.

Archbishop - A Christian Ecclesiastic Of A Rank Superior To That Attained By Christ.

A Society Made Up Of Individuals Who Were All Capable Of Original Thought Would Probably Be Unendurable.

Original Thought

The Great Difficulty About Keeping The Ten Commandments Is That No Man Can Keep Them And Be A Gentleman.

The American People, Taking One With Another, Constitute The Most Timorous, Snivelling, Poltroonish, Ignominious Mob Of Serfs And Goosesteppers Ever Gathered Under One Flag In Christendom Since The End Of The Middle Ages.

The Chief Knowledge That's Man On From Reading Books Is The Knowledge That Very Few Of Them Are Worth Reading.

I've Made It A Rule Never To Drink By Daylight And Never To Refuse A Drink After Dark.

The Intelligent, Like The Unintelligent, Are Responsive To Propaganda.

Consider Him In His Highest Incarnation: The University Professor. What Is His Function? Simply To Pass On To Fresh Generations Of Numskulls A Body Of So-called Knowledge That Is Fragmentary, Unimportant, And, In Large Part, Untrue. His Whole Professional Activity Is Circumscribed By The Prejudices, Vanities And Avarices Of His University Trustees, I.e., A Committee Of Soap-boilers, Nail Manufacturers, Bank-directors And Politicians. The Moment He Offends These Vermin He Is Undone. He Cannot So Much As Think Aloud Without Running A Risk Of Having Them Fan His Pantaloons.

It Is The Fundamental Theory Of All The More Recent American Law...that The Average Citizen Is Half-witted, And Hence Not To Be Trusted To Either His Own Devices Or His Own Thoughts.

One Of The Most Mawkish Of Human Delusions Is The Notion That Friendship Should Be Eternal, Or, At All Events, Life-long, And That Any Act Which Puts A Term To It Is Somehow Discreditable.

No Married Woman Ever Trusts Her Husband Absolutely, Nor Does She Ever Act As If She Did Trust Him. Her Utmost Confidence Is As Wary As An American Pickpocket's Confidence That The Policeman On The Beat Will Stay Bought.

Time Is A Great Legalizer, Even In The Field Of Morals

It Is More Blessed To Give Than Receive; For Example, Wedding Presents.

The Liberation Of The Human Mind Has Never Been Furthered By Dunderheads; It Has Been Furthered By Gay Fellows Who Heaved Dead Cats Into Sanctuaries And Then Went Roistering Down The Highways Of The World, Proving To All Men That Doubt, After All, Was Safe - That The God In The Sanctuary Was Finite In His Power And Hence A Fraud. One Horse-laugh Is Worth Ten Thousand Syllogisms. It Is Not Only More Effective; It Is Also Vastly More Intelligent.

Confidence: The Feeling That Makes One Believe A Man, Even When One Knows That One Would Lie In His Place

[art Is] An Attempt To Escape From Life.

Nothing Is So Abject And Pathetic As A Politician Who Has Lost His Job, Save Only A Retired Stud-horse.

Creator: A Comedian Whose Audience Is Afraid To Laugh.

It Is Impossible To Believe That The Same God Who Permitted His Own Son To Die A Bachelor Regards Celibacy As An Actual Sin.

Suppose Two-thirds Of The Members Of The National House Of Representatives Were Dumped Into The Washington Garbage Incinerator Tomorrow, What Would We Lose To Offset Our Gain Of Their Salaries And The Salaries Of Their Parasites?

A Fool Who, After Plain Warning, Persists In Dosing Himself With Dangerous Drugs Should Be Free To Do So, For His Death Is A Benefit To The Race In General.

The Only Way To Success In American Public Life Lies In Flattering And Kowtowing To The Mob

The Acting That One Sees Upon The Stage Does Not Show How Human Beings Comport Themselves In Crises, But How Actors Think They Ought To. It Is Thus, Like Poetry And Religion, A Device For Gladdening The Heart With What Is Palpably Not True.

A Man Loses His Sense Of Direction After Four Drinks; A Woman Loses Hers After Four Kisses.

Funny Valentines Day

Immortality Is The Condition Of A Dead Man Who Doesn't Believe He Is Dead

Two Simple Principles Lie At The Bottom Of The Whole Matter, And They May Be Precipitated Into Two Rules. The First Is That, When There Is A Choice, The Milder Drink Is Always The Better-not Merely The Safer But The Better. The Second Is That No Really Enlightened Drinker Ever Takes A Drink At A Time When He Has Any Work To Do. There Is, Of Course, More To It Than This; But These Are Sufficient For The Beginner, And Even The Virtuoso Never Outgrows Them.

No One Hates His Job So Heartily As A Farmer.

Man's Objection To Love Is That It Dies Hard: Women's, That When It Is Dead It Stays Dead.

No Government Is Ever Really In Favor Of So-called Civil Rights. It Always Tries To Whittle Them Down. They Are Preserved Under All Governments, Insofar As They Survive At All, By Special Classes Of Fanatics, Often Highly Dubious.

There Is No Record In The History Of A Nation That Ever Gained Anything Valuable By Being Unable To Defend Itself.

No One Ever Heard Of The Truth Being Enforced By Law. When The Secular Is Called In To Sustain An Idea, Whether New Or Old, It Is Always A Bad Idea, And Not Infrequently It Is Downright Idiotic.

[c]lass Consciousness Is Not One Of Our National Diseases; We Suffer, Indeed, From Its Opposite-the Delusion That Class Barriers Are Not Real. That Delusion Reveals Itself In Many Forms, Some Of Them As Beautiful As A Glass Eye. One Is The Liberal Doctrine That A Prairie Demagogue Promoted To The United States Senate Will Instantly Show All The Sagacity Of A Metternich ... Another Is The Doctrine That A Moronrun Through A University And Decorated With A Ph.d. Will Cease Thereby To Be A Moron.

What Is Too Often Forgotten Is That Nature Obviously Intends The Botched To Die, And That Every Interference With That Benign Process Is Full Of Dangers.

A Man May Be A Fool And Not Know It, But Not If He Is Married.

The Idea That Leisure Is Of Value In Itself Is Only Conditionally True. The Average Man Simply Spends His Leisure As A Dog Spends It. His Recreations Are All Puerile, And The Time Supposed To Benefit Him Really Only Stupefies Him.

The Truth Is . . . That The Great Artists Of The World Are Never Puritans, And Seldom Ever Ordinarily Respectable. No Virtuous Man - That Is, Virtuous In The Ymca Sense - Has Ever Painted A Picture Worth Looking At, Or Written A Symphony Worth Hearing, Or A Book Worth Reading, And It Is Highly Improbable That The Thing Has Ever Been Done By A Virtuous Woman.

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.

The Aim Of Poetry, It Appears, Is To Fill The Mind With Lofty Thoughts--not To Give It Joy, But To Give It A Grand And Somewhat Gaudy Sense Of Virtue. The Essay Is A Weapon Against The Degenerate Tendencies Of The Age. The Novel, Properly Conceived, Is A Means Of Uplifting The Spirit; Its Aim Is To Inspire, Not Merely To Satisfy The Low Curiosity Of Man In Man.

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.

There Are Two Impossibilities In Life: "just One Drink" And "an Honest Politician."

A Man Always Blames The Woman Who Fools Him. In The Same Way He Blames The Door He Walks Into In The Dark.

Funny Inspirational

A Home Is Not A Mere Transient Shelter: Its Essence Lies In The Personalities Of The People Who Live In It.

Without A Doubt There Are Women Who Would Vote Intelligently. There Are Also Men Who Knit Socks Beautifully.

It Seems To Me That Society Usually Wins. There Are, To Be Sure, Free Spirits In The World, But Their Freedom, In The Last Analysis, Is Not Much Greater Than That Of A Canary In A Cage. They May Leap From Perch To Perch; They May Bathe And Guzzle At Their Will; They May Flap Their Wings And Sing. But They Are Still In The Cage, And Soon Or Late It Conquers Them.

Love Is The Triumph Of Imagination Over Intelligence.

Man Is Always Looking For Someone To Boast To; Woman Is Always Looking For A Shoulder To Put Her Head On.

Dachshund: A Half-a-dog High And A Dog-and-a-half Long.

The More Noisy Negro Leaders, By Depicting All Whites As Natural And Implacable Enemies To Their Race, Have Done It A Great Disservice. Large Numbers Of Whites Who Were Formerly Very Friendly To It, And Willing To Go To Great Lengths To Help It, Are Now Resentful And Suspicious.

To Be Happy One Must Be (a) Well Fed, Unhounded By Sordid Cares, At Ease In Zion, (b) Full Of A Comfortable Feeling Of Superiority To The Masses Of One's Fellow Men, And (c) Delicately And Unceasingly Amused According To One's Taste. It Is My Contention That, If This Definition Be Accepted, There Is No Country In The World Wherein A Man Constituted As I Am - A Man Of My Peculiar Weakness, Vanities, Appetites, And Aversions - Can Be So Happy As He Can Be In The United States.

Government, In Its Very Essence, Is Opposed To All Increase In Knowledge. Its Tendency Is Always Towards Permanence And Against Change...[t]he Progress Of Humanity, Far From Being The Result Of Government, Has Been Made Entirely Without Its Aid And In The Face If Its Constant And Bitter Opposition.

The Value The World Sets Upon Motives Is Often Grossly Unjust And Inaccurate.

As For Lindbergh, Another Eminent Servant Of Science, All He Proved By His Gaudy Flight Across The Atlantic Was That God Takes Care Of Those Who Have Been So Fortunate As To Come Into The World Foolish. Expressing Skepticism That Adventure Does Not Necessarily Contribute To Scientific Knowledge.

Pastor: One Employed By The Wicked To Prove To Them By His Example That Virtue Doesn't Pay.

To Believe That Russia Has Got Rid Of The Evils Of Capitalism Takes A Special Kind Of Mind. It Is The Same Kind Of Mind That Believes That A Holy Roller Has Got Rid Of Sin.

It Seems To Me That A Great University Ought To Have Room In It For Men Subscribing To Every Sort Of Idea That Is Currently Prevalent

Capital Punishment Has Probably Been Responsible For A Good Deal Of Human Progress. The Overwhelming Majority Of Those Executed Were Of The Sort Whose Departures For Bliss Eternal Improved The Average Intelligence And Decency Of The Race.

The Central Difficulty Lies In The Fact That All Of The Sciences Have Made Such Great Progress During The Last Century That They Have Got Quite Beyond The Reach Of Man

Truth Would Quickly Cease To Be Stranger Than Fiction, Once We Got As Used To It.

As Long As The Southern Colleges Have Revivals On Their Campuses And Students Get Converted To Methodism And Join The Ymca And Are Accepted As Gentlemen, It Will Be Impossible To Think Of The South As Civilized...the Educated Folk Of The Old South Took Theology Lightly, And Religion To Them Was Hardly More Than A Charming Ritual, Useful On Solemn Occassions.

The Average Man Does Not Want To Be Free. He Simply Wants To Be Safe.

As Long As You Represent Me As Praising Alcohol I Shall Not Complain. It Is, I Believe, The Greatest Of Human Inventions, And By Far - Much Greater Than Hell, The Radio Or The Bichloride Tablet.

Never Underestimate The Bad Taste Of The American Public

Never Underestimate

The Longest Sentence You Can Form With Two Words Is: I Do.

What Fetched Me Instantly (and Thousands Of Other Newcomers With Me) Was The Subtle But Unmistakable Sense Of Escape From The United States.

[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.

Man, At His Best, Remains A Sort Of One-lunged Animal, Never Completely Rounded And Perfect, As A Cockroach, Say, Is Perfect.

Puccini - Silver Macaroni, Exquisitely Tangled.

The Idea That The Sole Aim Of Punishment Is To Prevent Crime Is Obviously Grounded Upon The Theory That Crime Can Be Prevented, Which Is Almost As Dubious As The Notion That Poverty Can Be Prevented.

Nobody Ever Went Broke Underestimating The Taste Of The American Public.

Progress: The Process Whereby The Human Race Has Got Rid Of Whiskers, The Vermiform Appendix And God.

The Cosmos Is A Gigantic Flywheel Making 10,000 Revolutions Per Minute. Man Is A Sick Fly Taking A Dizzy Ride On It.

I Know Some Who Are Constantly Drunk On Books As Other Men Are Drunk On Whiskey.

The Objection To A Communist Always Resolves Itself Into The Fact That He Is Not A Gentleman.

Here Is Tragedy - And Here Is America. For The Curse Of The Country, As Well Of All Democracies, Is Precisely The Fact That It Treats Its Best Men As Enemies. The Aim Of Our Society, If It May Be Said To Have An Aim, Is To Iron Them Out. The Ideal American, In The Public Sense, Is A Respectable Vacuum.

Opera In English Is, In The Main, Just About As Sensible As Baseball In Italian.

All Great Religions, In Order To Escape Absurdity, Have To Admit A Dilution Of Agnosticism. It Is Only The Savage, Whether Of The African Bush Or The American Gospel Tent, Who Pretends To Know The Will And Intent Of God Exactly And Completely.

There Are No Dull Subjects. There Are Only Dull Writers.

My Belief In Free Speech Is So Profound That I Am Seldom Tempted To Deny It To The Other Fellow. Nor Do I Make Any Effort To Differentiate Between The Other Fellow Right And That Other Fellow Wrong, For I Am Convinced That Free Speech Is Worth Nothing Unless It Includes A Full Franchise To Be Foolish And Even...malicious.

Only A Jackass Ever Talks Over His Affairs With A Woman, Whether She Be His Sweetheart, Wife, Or Sister, Or Mother.

I Have Often Argued That A Poet More Than Thirty Years Old Is Simply An Overgrown Child. I Begin To Suspect That There May Be Some Truth In It.

Democracy The Domination Of Unreflective And Timorous Men, Moved In Vast Herds By Mob Conditions.

New York Is The Place Where All The Aspirations Of The Western World Meet To Form One Vast Master Aspiration, As Powerful As The Suction Of A Steam Dredge. It Is The Icing On The Pie Called Christian Civilization.

The Most Popular Man Under A Democracy Is Not The Most Democratic Man, But The Most Despotic Man. The Common Folk Delight In The Exactions Of Such A Man. They Like Him To Boss Them. Their Natural Gait Is The Goose Step.

The Public, With Its Mob Yearning To Be Instructed, Edified And Pulled By The Nose, Demands Certainties; It Must Be Told Definitely And A Bit Raucously That This Is True And That Is False. But There Are No Certainties.

In War The Heroes Always Outnumber The Soldiers Ten To One.

In The United States...politics Is Purged Of All Menace, All Sinister Quality, All Genuine Significance, And Stuffed With Such Gorgeous Humors, Such Inordinate Farce That One Comes To The End Of A Campaign With One's Ribs Loose, And Ready For King Lear, Or A Hanging, Or A Course Of Medical Journals.

The Other Day A Dog Peed On Me. A Bad Sign.

In Every Woman's Life There Is One Real And Consuming Love. But Very Few Women Guess Which One It Is.

The Men The American People Admire Most Extravagantly Are The Most Daring Liars; The Men They Detest Most Violently Are Those Who Try To Tell Them The Truth.

The Art Of Writing, Like The Art Of Love, Runs All The Way From A Kind Of Routine Hard To Distinguish From Piling Bricks To A Kind Of Frenzy Closely Related To Delirium Tremens.

The Fact That I Have No Remedy For All The Sorrows Of The World Is No Reason For My Accepting Yours. It Simply Supports The Strong Probability That Yours Is A Fake.

The Intellectual Heritage Of The Race Belongs To The Minority.

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W. E. B. Du Bois

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