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Liberty Is Not For These Slaves; I Do Not Advocate Inflicting It Against Their Conscience. On The Contrary, I Am Strongly In Favor Of Letting Them Crawl And Grovel All They Please Before Whatever Fraud Or Combination Of Frauds They Choose To Venerate...our Whole Practical Government Is Grounded In Mob Psychology And The Boobus Americanus Will Follow Any Command That Promises To Make Him Safer.

-H. L. Mencken

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Liberty Is Not For

H. L. Mencken

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Liberty Is Not For These Slaves; I Do Not Advocate Inflicting It Against Their Conscience. On The Contrary, I Am Strongly In Favor Of Letting Them Crawl And Grovel All They Please Before Whatever Fraud Or Combination Of Frauds They Choose To Venerate...our Whole Practical Government Is Grounded In Mob Psychology And The Boobus Americanus Will Follow Any Command That Promises To Make Him Safer.

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It Is The Invariable Habit Of Bureaucracies, At All Times And Everywhere, To Assume...that Every Citizen Is A Criminal. Their One Apparent Purpose, Pursued With A Relentless And Furious Diligence, Is To Convert The Assumption Into A Fact. They Hunt Endlessly For Proofs, And, When Proofs Are Lacking, For Mere Suspicions. The Moment They Become Aware Of A Definite Citizen, John Doe, Seeking What Is His Right Under The Law, They Begin Searching Feverishly For An Excuse For Withholding It From Him.

I'm Ombibulous. I Drink Every Known Alcoholic Drink And Enjoy Them All.

The Ideal Way To Get Rid Of Any Infectious Disease Would Be To Shoot Instantly Every Person Who Comes Down With It.

When I Reach The Shades At Last It Will No Doubt Astonish Satan To Discover, On Thumbing My Dossier, That I Was A Member Of The Y.m.c.a.

The Worst Of Marriage Is That It Makes A Woman Believe That All Men Are Just As Easy To Fool.

There Is A Saying In Baltimore That Crabs May Be Prepared In Fifty Ways And That All Of Them Are Good.

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

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

A Dull, Dark, Depressing Day In Winter: The Whole World Looks Like A Methodist Church At Wednesday Night Prayer Meeting.

Well, I Tell You, If I Have Been Wrong In My Agnosticism, When I Die I'll Walk Up To God In A Manly Way And Say, Sir, I Made An Honest Mistake.

The More I Think You Over, The More It Comes Home To Me What An Unmitigated Middle Victorian Ass You Are!

Liberals Have Many Tails And Chase Them All.

There Are Men So Philosophical That They Can See Humor In Their Own Toothaches. But There Has Never Lived A Man So Philosophical That He Could See The Toothache In His Own Humor.

God Is A Republican, And Santa Claus Is A Democrat.

The Way To Hold A Husband Is To Keep Him A Little Jealous; The Way To Lose Him Is To Keep Him A Little More Jealous.

Setting Aside The Vast Herd Which Shows No Definable Character At All, It Seems To Me That The Minority Distinguished By What Is Commonly Regarded As An Excess Of Sin Is Very Much More Admirable Than The Minority Distinguished By An Excess Of Virtue. My Experience Of The World Has Taught Me That The Average Wine-bibbler Is A Far Better Fellow Than The Average Prohibitionist, And That The Average Rogue Is Better Company Than The Average Poor Drudge, And That The Worst White-slave Trader Of My Acquaintance Is A Decenter Man Than The Best Vice Crusader.

[the] Erroneous Assumption Is To The Effect That The Aim Of Public Education Is To Fill The Young Of The Species With Knowledge And Awaken Their Intelligence, And So Make Them Fit To Discharge The Duties Of Citizenship In An Enlightened And Independent Manner. Nothing Could Be Further From The Truth. The Aim Of Public Education Is Not To Spread Enlightenment At All; It Is Simply To Reduce As Many Individuals As Possible To The Same Safe Level, To Breed And Train A Standardised Citizenry, To Put Down Dissent And Originality.

The Scientist Who Yields Anything To Theology, However Slight, Is Yielding To Ignorance And False Pretenses, And As Certainly As If He Granted That A Horse-hair Put Into A Bottle Of Water Will Turn Into A Snake.

In My Day A Reporter Who Took An Assignment Was Wholly On His Own Until He Got Back To The Office, And Even Then He Was Little Molested Until His Copy Was Turned In At The Desk; Today He Tends To Become Only A Homunculus At The End Of A Telephone Wire, And The Reduction Of His Observations To Prose Is Commonly Farmed Out To Literary Castrati Who Never Leave The Office, And Hence Never Feel The Wind Of The World In Their Faces Or See Anything With Their Own Eyes.

All Men Are Frauds. The Only Difference Between Them Is That Some Admit It. I Myself Deny It.

What I Admire Most In Any Man Is A Serene Spirit, A Steady Freedom From Moral Indignation, And All-embracing Tolerance--in Brief,what Is Commonly Called Sportsmanship.

I Believe That Religion, Generally Speaking, Has Been A Curse To Mankind - That Its Modest And Greatly Overestimated Services On The Ethical Side Have Been More Than Overcome By The Damage It Has Done To Clear And Honest Thinking.

The American People, North And South, Went Into The [civil] War As Citizens Of Their Respective States, They Came Out As Subjects ... What They Thus Lost They Have Never Got Back.

I Know Of No Human Being Who Has A Better Time Than An Eager And Energetic Young Reporter.

The Allurement That Women Hold Out To Men Is Precisely The Allurement That Cape Hatteras Holds Out To Sailors; They Are Enormously Dangerous And Hence Enormously Fascinating.

The Townspeople Are Morons, Yokels, Peasants And Genus Homo Boobiensis...surrounded By Gaping Primates From The Upland Vallies.

No One Hates His Job So Heartily As A Farmer.

Men Are The Only Animals That Devote Themselves, Day In And Day Out, To Making One Another Unhappy. It Is An Art Like Any Other. Its Virtuosi Are Called Altruists.

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

There Has Been No Organized Effort To Keep Government Down Since Jefferson's Day. Ever Since Then The American People Have Been Bolstering Up Its Powers And Giving It More And More Jurisdiction Over Their Affairs. They Pay For That Folly In Increased Taxes And Diminished Liberties.

No Matter How Much A Woman Loved A Man, It Would Still Give Her A Glow To See Him Commit Suicide For Her.

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

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.

A National Political Campaign Is Better Than The Best Circus Ever Heard Of, With A Mass Baptism And A Couple Of Hangings Thrown In.

Bridges Would Not Be Safer If Only People Who Knew The Proper Definition Of A Real Number Were Allowed To Design Them.

One Does Not Arise From Such A Book As Sister Carrie With A Smirk Of Satisfaction; One Leaves It Infinitely Touched.

Women Hate Revolutions And Revolutionists. They Like Men Who Are Docile, And Well-regarded At The Bank, And Never Late At Meals.

The New Deal Began, Like The Salvation Army, By Promising To Save Humanity. It Ended, Again Like The Salvation Army, By Running Flop-houses And Disturbing The Peace.

Freedom Of Press Is Limited To Those Who Own One.

Writing Books Is Certainly A Most Unpleasant Occupation. It Is Lonesome, Unsanitary, And Maddening. Many Authors Go Crazy.

No Man Ever Quite Believes In Any Other Man. One May Believe In An Idea Absolutely, But Not In A Man. In The Highest Confidence There Is Always A Flavor Of Doubt--a Feeling, Half Instinctive And Half Logical, That, After All, The Scoundrel May Have Something Up His Sleeve.

Giving Every Man A Vote Has No More Made Men Wise And Free Than Christianity Has Made Them Good.

Here The Only Genuine Conflict Is Between True Believers. Of A Given Text In Holy Writ One Faction May Say This Thing And Another That, But Both Agree Unreservedly That The Text Itself Is Impeccable, And Neither In The Midst Of The Most Violent Disputation Would Venture To Accuse The Other Of Doubt. To Call A Man A Doubter In These Parts Is Equal To Accusing Him Of Cannibalism. Even The Infidel Scopes Himself Is Not Charged With Any Such Infamy.

When I Hear Artists Or Authors Making Fun Of Businessmen, I Think Of A Regiment In Which The Band Makes Fun Of The Cooks.

Let No One Mistake It For Comedy, Farcical Though It May Be In All Its Details. It Serves Notice On The Country That Neanderthal Man Is Organizing In These Forlorn Backwaters Of The Land, Led By A Fanatic, Rid Of Sense And Devoid Of Conscience.

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.

Love Is An Emotion That Is Based On An Opinion Of Women That Is Impossible For Those Who Have Had Any Experience With Them.

The Trouble With Fighting For Human Freedom Is That One Spends Most Of One's Time Defending Scoundrels. For It Is Against Scoundrels That Oppressive Laws Are First Aimed, And Oppression Must Be Stopped At The Beginning If It Is To Be Stopped At All.

No Professional Politician Is Ever Actually In Favor Of Public Economy. It Is His Implacable Enemy, And He Knows It. All Professional Politicians Are Dedicated Wholeheartedly To Waste And Corruption. They Are The Enemies Of Every Decent Man.

The Way To Deal With Superstition Is Not To Be Polite To It, But To Tackle It With All Arms, And So Rout It, Cripple It, And Make It Forever Infamous And Ridiculous.

Faith May Be Defined Briefly As An Illogical Belief In The Occurrence Of The Improbable.

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.

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.

There Is No Record In Human History Of A Happy Philosopher: They Exist Only In Romantic Legend.

What Ass First Let Loose The Doctrine That The Suffrage Is A High Boon And Voting A Noble Privilege?

School Teachers, Taking Them By And Large, Are Probably The Most Ignorant And Stupid Class Of Men In The Whole Group Of Mental Workers.

There Are No Ugly Cigars, Only Ugly Smokers.

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

Women Have A Hard Time Of It In This World. They Are Oppressed By Man-made Laws, Man-made Social Customs, Masculine Egoism, The Delusion Of Masculine Superiority. Their One Comfort Is The Assurance That, Even Though It May Be Impossible To Prevail Against Man, It Is Always Possible To Enslave And Torture A Man.

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

Morality Is Nothing But A Struggle For Safety

Unsuccessful Candidates For The Presidency Should Be Quietly Hanged As A Matter Of Public Sanitation And Decorum.

Wealth - Any Income That Is At Least One Hundred Dollars More A Year Than The Income Of One's Wife's Sister's Husband.

The Jews Fastened Their Religion Upon The Western World, Not Because It Was More Reasonable Than The Religions Of Their Contemporaries - As A Matter Of Fact, It Was Vastly Less Reasonable Than Many Of Them - But Because It Was Far More Poetical.

Hanging One Scoundrel, It Appears, Does Not Deter The Next. Well, What Of It? The First One Is At Least Disposed Of.

A Mood Of Constructive Criticism Being Upon Me, I Propose Forthwith That The Method Of Choosing Legislators Now Prevailing In The United States Be Abandoned And That The Method Used In Choosing Juries Be Substituted. That Is To Say, I Propose That The Men Who Make Our Laws Be Chosen By Chance And Against Will Of All The Rest Of Us, As Now.

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

The Theory Seems To Be That As Long As A Man Is A Failure He Is One Of God's Children, But That As Soon As He Succeeds He Is Taken Over By The Devil.

The Fact Is That The Average Man's Love Of Liberty Is Nine-tenths Imaginary, Exactly Like His Love Of Sense, Justice And Truth.

No Man Ever Quite Believes In Any Other Man.

Wife: A Former Sweetheart.

Of All The Human Qualities, The One I Admire The Most Is Competence. A Tailor Who Is Really Able To Cut And Fit A Coat Seems To Me An Admirable Man, And By The Same Token A University Professor Who Knows Little Or Nothing Of The Thing He Presumes To Teach Seems To Me To Be A Fraud And A Rascal.

University Professors

Immorality: The Morality Of Those Who Are Having A Better Time.

Most People Want Security In This World, Not Liberty.

Perhaps The Most Revolting Character That The United States Ever Produced Was The Christian Businessman.

He Slept More Than Any Other President, Whether By Day Or By Night. Nero Fiddled, But Coolidge Only Snored.

Every Election Is A Sort Of Advance Auction Sale Of Stolen Goods.

What Is The Function That A Clergyman Performs In The World? Answer: He Gets His Living By Assuring Idiots That He Can Save Them From An Imaginary Hell.

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.

If The Average Man Is Made In God's Image, Then A Man Such As Beethoven Or Aristotle Is Plainly Superior To God, And So God May Be Jealous Of Him, And Eager To See His Superiority Perish With His Bodily Frame.

People Say We Need Religion When What They Really Mean Is We Need Police.

The Wholly Manly Man Lacks The Wit Necessary To Give Objective Form To His Soaring And Secret Dreams, And The Wholly Womanly Woman Is Apt To Be Too Cynical A Creature To Dream At All.

A Tin Horn Politician With The Manner Of A Rural Corn Doctor And The Mien Of A Ham Actor

God Is The Immemorial Refuge Of The Incompetent, The Helpless, And The Miserable. They Find Not Only Sanctuary In His Arms, But Also A Kind Of Superiority, Soothing To Their Macerated Egos; He Will Set Them Above Their Betters.

If There Was Ever A Dissenter From The National Optimismit Was Surely Edgar Allan Poe--without Question The Bravest And Mostoriginal, If Perhaps Also The Least Orderly And Judicious, Of All The Critics That We Have Produced.

Good Government Is That Which Delivers The Citizen From Being Done Out Of His Life And Property Too Arbitrarily And Violently-one That Relieves Him Sufficiently From The Barbaric Business Of Guarding Them To Enable Him To Engage In Gentler, More Dignified, And More Agreeable Undertakings.

The Typical American Of Today Has Lost All The Love Of Liberty, That His Forefathers Had, And All Their Disgust Of Emotion, And Pride In Self- Reliance. He Is Led No Longer By Davy Crocketts; He Is Led By Cheer Leaders, Press Agents, Word Mongers, Uplifters.

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

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

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.

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

Jealousy Is A Keen Observer, But Looks For All The Wrong Signs.

But I Wonder Where We Will Land If Trial Judges Begin Deciding That The Fact That A Man Has Committed An Atrocious Crime Is Proof Sufficient That He Is Not Responsible For His Acts.

The Essence Of Science Is That It Is Always Willing To Abandon A Given Idea For A Better One; The Essence Of Theology Is That It Holds Its Truths To Be Eternal And Immutable.

A Gentlemen Is One Who Never Strikes A Woman Without Provocation.

Some Boys Go To College And Eventually Succeed In Getting Out. Others Go To College And Never Succeed In Getting Out. The Latter Are Called Professors.

No Man Is Worthy Of Unlimited Reliance-his Treason, At Best, Only Waits For Sufficient Temptation.

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.

Since The Early Days, [the Church] Has Thrown Itself Violently Against Every Effort To Liberate The Body And Mind Of Man. It Has Been, At All Times And Everywhere, The Habitual And Incorrigible Defender Of Bad Governments, Bad Laws, Bad Social Theories, Bad Institutions. It Was, For Centuries, An Apologist For Slavery, As It Was An Apologist For The Divine Right Of Kings.

I Believe That It Should Be Perfectly Lawful To Print Even Things That Outrage The Pruderies And Prejudices Of The General, So Long As Any Honest Minority, However Small, Wants To Read Them. The Remedy Of The Majority Is Not Prohibition, But Avoidance.

Even A Superstitious Man Has Certain Inalienable Rights: The Right To Harbor And Indulge His Imbecilities, Provided Only That He Does Not Try To Inflict Them Upon Others By Force; He Has The Right To Argue For Them As Eloquently As He Can. But He Has No Right To Be Protected From The Criticism Of Those Who Do Not Hold Them. He Has No Right To Demand That They Be Treated As Sacred. He Has No Right To Preach Them Without Challenge.

It Is Only Doubt That Creates. It Is Only The Minority That Counts.

The Christian Always Swears A Bloody Oath That He Will Never Do It Again. The Civilized Man Simply Resolves To Be A Bit More Careful Next Time.

It Is Impossible To Think Of A Man Of Any Actual Force And Originality, Universally Recognized As Having Those Qualities, Who Spent His Whole Life Appraising And Describing The Work Of Other Men.

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.

Theology Is The Effort To Explain The Unknowable In Terms Of The Not Worth Knowing.

The Government Consists Of A Gang Of Men Exactly Like You And Me. They Have, Taking One With Another, No Special Talent For The Business Of Government; They Have Only A Talent For Getting And Holding Office.

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.

Governments, Whatever Their Pretensions Otherwise, Try To Preserve Themselves By Holding The Individual Down ... Government Itself, Indeed, May Be Reasonably Defined As A Conspiracy Against Him. Its One Permanent Aim, Whatever Its Form, Is To Hobble Him Sufficiently To Maintain Itself.

The Essential Dilemma Of Education Is To Be Found In The Fact That The Sort Of Man (or Woman) Who Knows A Given Subject Sufficiently Well To Teach It Is Usually Unwilling To Do So.

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

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

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.

Civilization, In Fact, Grows More Maudlin And Hysterical; Especially Under Democracy It Tends To Degenerate Into A Mere Combat Of Crazes; The Whole Aim Of Practical Politics Is To Keep The Populace Alarmed (and Hence Clamorous To Be Led To Safety) By An Endless Series Of Hobgoblins, Most Of Them Imaginary. Wars Are No Longer Waged By The Will Of Superior Men, Capable Of Judging Dispassionately And Intelligently The Causes Behind Them And The Effects Flowing Out Of Them. The Are Now Begun By First Throwing A Mob Into A Panic; They Are Ended Only When It Has Spent Its Ferine Fury.

The Scent Of Frying Astronomers Long Ago Ceased To Ascend To Yahweh.

Democracy Is Also A Form Of Worship. It Is The Worship Of Jackals By Jackasses.

Democracies Have

And What Is A Good Citizen? Simply One Who Never Says, Does Or Thinks Anything That Is Unusual. Schools Are Maintained In Order To Bring This Uniformity Up To The Highest Possible Point. A School Is A Hopper Into Which Children Are Heaved While They Are Still Young And Tender; Therein They Are Pressed Into Certain Standard Shapes And Covered From Head To Heels With Official Rubber-stamps.

It Is The Theory Of All Modern Civilized Governments That They Protect And Foster The Liberty Of The Citizen; It Is The Practice Of All Of Them To Limit Its Exercise, And Sometimes Very Narrowly.

The Only Really Happy Folk Are Married Women And Single Men.

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.

Love, To The Inferior Man, Remains Almost Wholly A Physical Matter. The Heroine He Most Admires Is The One Who Offers The Grossest Sexual Provocation; The Hero Who Makes His Wife Roll Her Eyes Is A Perambulating Phallus.

Some Time Ago A Publisher Told Me That There Are Four Kinds Of Books That Seldom, If Ever, Lose Money In The United States--first,murder Stories; Secondly, Novels In Which The Heroine Is Forcibly Overcome By The Hero; Thirdly, Volumes On Spiritualism, Occultism And Other Such Claptrap, And Fourthly, Books On Lincoln.

Why Do Men Delight In Work? Fundamentally, I Suppose, Because There Is A Sense Of Relief And Pleasure In Getting Something Done - A Kind Of Satisfaction Not Unlike That Which A Hen Enjoys On Laying An Egg.

The Catholic Clergy Seldom Bother To Make Their Arguments Plausible; It Is Plain That They Have Little Respect For Human Intelligence, And Indeed Little Belief In Its Existence.

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

After All, The World Is Not Our Handiwork, And We Are Not Responsible For What Goes On In It, Save Within Very Narrow Limits.

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

Conscience Is The Accumulated Sediment Of Ancestral Faint- Heartedness

Conscience Is The Inner Voice That Warns Us That Someone Might Be Looking.

When I Think Of Anything Properly Describable As A Beautiful Idea, It Is Always In The Form Of Music. I Have Written And Printed Probably 10,000,000 Words In English But All The Same I Shall Die An Inarticulate Man, For My Best Ideas Beset Me In A Language I Know Only Vaguely And Speak Only As A Child.

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

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.

Why Writers Write I Do Not Know. As Well Ask Why A Hen Lays An Egg Or Why A Cow Stands Patiently While An Underprivileged Farmer Burglarizes Her.

The Opera Is To Music What A Bawdy House Is To A Cathedral.

An Altruist Is One Who Would Be Sincerely Sorry To See His Neighbor's Children Devoured By Wolves.

Christian Endeavor Is Notoriously Hard On Female Pulchritude.

Chopin--two Embalmers At Work Upon A Minor Poetthe Scent Of Tuberosesautumn Rain.

Temptation Is A Woman's Weapon And Man's Excuse.

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

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.

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.

If I Had My Way, Any Man Guilty Of Golf Would Be Ineligible For Any Office Of Trust In The United States.

Every Autobiography ... Becomes An Absorbing Work Of Fiction, With Something Of The Charm Of A Cryptogram.

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

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

Creator: A Comedian Whose Audience Is Afraid To Laugh.

The Pedant And The Priest Have Always Been The Most Expert Of Logicians - And The Most Diligent Disseminators Of Nonsense And Worse.

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

The Feelings That Beethoven Put Into His Music Were The Feelings Of A God. There Was Something Olympian In His Snarls And Rages, And There Was A Touch Of Hellfire In His Mirth.

Who Ever Heard, Indeed, Of An Autobiography That Was Not (interesting)? I Can Recall None In All The Literature Of The World

Love Is The Delusion That One Woman Differs From Another.

It [the State] Has Taken On A Vast Mass Of New Duties And Responsibilities; It Has Spread Out Its Powers Until They Penetrate To Every Act Of The Citizen, However Secret; It Has Begun To Throw Around Its Operations The High Dignity And Impeccability Of A State Religion; Its Agents Become A Separate And Superior Caste, With Authority To Bind And Loose, And Their Thumbs In Every Pot. But It Still Remains, As It Was In The Beginning, The Common Enemy Of All Well-disposed, Industrious And Decent Men.

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

To The Extent That I Am Genuinely Educated, I Am Suspicious Of All The Things That The Average Citizen Believes And The Average Pedagogue Teaches.

I Think The Negro People Should Feel Secure Enough By Now To Face A Reasonable Ridicule Without Terror. I Am Unalterably Opposed To All Efforts To Put Down Free Speech, Whatever The Excuse.

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

I Hope I Need Not Confess That A Large Part Of My Stock In Trade Consists Of Platitudes Rescued From The Cobwebbed Shelves Of Yesterday... This Borrowing And Refurbishing Of Shop-worn Goods, As A Matter Of Fact, Is The Invariable Habit Of Traders In Ideas, At All Times And Everywhere. It Is Not, However, That All The Conceivable Human Notions Have Been Thought Out; It Is Simply, To Be Quite Honest, That The Sort Of Men Who Volunteer To Think Out New Ones Seldom, If Ever, Have Wind Enough For A Full Day's Work.

I Am, In Fact, The Complete Anti-messiah, And Detest Converts Almost As Much As I Detest Missionaries. My Writings, Such As They Are, Have Had Only One Purpose: To Attain For H. L. Mencken That Feeling Of Tension Relieved And Function Achieved Which A Cow Enjoys On Giving Milk.

The Older I Grow The More I Distrust The Familiar Doctrine That Age Brings Wisdom.

Liberty ... Was A Two-headed Boon. There Was First, The Liberty Of The People As A Whole To Determine The Forms Of Their Own Government, To Levy Their Own Taxes, And To Make Their Own Laws.... There Was Second, The Liberty Of The Individual Man To Live His Own Life, Within The Limits Of Decency And Decorum, As He Pleased -- Freedom From The Despotism Of The Majority.

Balloonists Have An Unsurpassed View Of The Scenery, But There Is Always The Possibility That It May Collide With Them.

If, After I Depart This Vale, You Ever Remember Me And Have Thought To Please My Ghost, Forgive Some Sinner And Wink Your Eye At Some Homely Girl.

After All Is Said And Done, A Hell Lot Of A Lot More Is Said Than Done.

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 Life Of Man In This World Is Like The Life Of A Fly In A Room Filled With 100 Boys, Each Armed With A Fly-swatter.

Once A Woman Passes A Certain Point In Intelligence She Finds It Almost Impossible To Get A Husband: She Simply Cannot Go On Listening Without Snickering.

It Is Difficult To Imagine Anyone Having Any Real Hopes For The Human Race In The Face Of The Fact That The Great Majority Of Men Still Believe That The Universe Is Run By A Gaseous Vertebrate Of Astronomical Heft And Girth, Who Is Nevertheless Interested In The Minutest Details Of The Private Conduct Of Even The Meanest Man.

The Effect Of Every Sort Of New Deal Is To Increase And Prosper The Criminal Class. It Teaches Precisely What All Professional Criminals Believe, To Wit, That, It Is Neither Virtuous Nor Necessary To Suffer And To Do Without.

Under Democracy One Party Always Devotes Its Chief Energies To Trying To Prove That The Other Party Is Unfit To Rule—and Both Commonly Succeed, And Are Right.

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?

The Function Of A Newspaper In A Democracy Is To Stand As A Sort Of Chronic Opposition To The Reigning Quacks. The Minute It Begins To Out-whoop Them It Forfeits Its Character And Becomes Ridiculous.

The Truth That Survives Is Simply The Lie That Is Pleasantest To Believe.

The Editors Are Committed To Nothing Save This: To Keep Common Sense As Fast As They Can, To Belabor Sham As Agreeably As Possible, To Give Civilized Entertainment.

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. Its Evil Effects Must Be Plain Enough To Everyone. All It Accomplishes Is (a) To Throw A Veil Of Sanctity About Ideas That Violate Every Intellectual Decency, And (b) To Make Every Theologian A Sort Of Chartered Libertine. No Doubt It Is Mainly To Blame For The Appalling Slowness With Which Really Sound Notions Make Their Way In The World.

To Die For An Idea; It Is Unquestionably Noble. But How Much Nobler It Would Be If Men Died For Ideas That Were True!

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

Never Underestimate The Bad Taste Of The American Public

Never Underestimate

The Highfalutin Aims Of Democracy, Whether Real Or Imaginary, Are Always Assumed To Be Identical With Its Achievements. This, Of Course, Is Sheer Hallucination. Not One Of Those Aims, Not Even The Aim Of Giving Every Adult A Vote, Has Been Realized. It Has No More Made Men Wise And Free Than Christianity Has Made Them Good.

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.

So Few Men Are Really Worth Knowing, That It Seems A Shameful Waste To Let An Anthropoid Prejudice Stand In The Way Of Free Association With One Who Is.

Wherever I Sit Is The Head Of The Table.

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

Women Decide The Larger Questions Of Life Correctly And Quickly, Not Because They Are Lucky Guessers, Not Because They Are Divinely Inspired, Not Because They Practise A Magic Inherited From Savagery, But Simply And Solely Because They Have Sense. They See At A Glance What Most Men Could Not See With Searchlights And Telescopes.... They Are The Supreme Realists Of The Race.

The Book Of Genesis, A Farrago Of Nonsense So Wholly Absurd That Even Sunday-school Scholars Have To Be Threatened With Hell To Make Them Accept It.

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.

In The United States, Doing Good Has Come To Be, Like Patriotism, A Favorite Device Of Persons With Something To Sell.

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.

I Detest Converts Almost As Much As I Do Missionaries.

Whenever A Annoys Or Injures B On The Pretense Of Saving Or Improving X, A Is A Scoundrel.

I Am Against Slavery Simply Because I Dislike Slaves.

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

When Women Kiss It Always Reminds One Of Prize Fighters Shaking Hands.

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

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

The Only Guarantee Of The Bill Of Rights Which Continues To Have Any Force And Effect Is The One Prohibiting Quartering Troops On Citizens In Time Of Peace. All The Rest Have Been Disposed Of By Judicial Interpretation And Legislative Whittling.

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

Los Angeles: Nineteen Suburbs In Search Of A Metropolis.

The Average Man's Love Of Liberty Is Nine-tenths Imaginary, Exactly Like His Love Of Sense, Justice And Truth... It Takes A Special Sort Of Man To Understand And Enjoy Liberty - And He Is Usually An Outlaw In Democratic Societies.

No One In This World, So Far As I Know - And I Have Searched The Records For Years, And Employed Agents To Help Me - Has Ever Lost Money By Underestimating The Intelligence Of The Great Masses Of The Plain People.

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