All of the guests on 'Faces of America' were deeply moved by what we revealed about their ancestry. We were able to trace the ancestry of Native American writer Louise Erdrich back to 438 A.D. We found that Queen Noor is descended from royalty, and that's before she married King Hussein of Jordan.


Henry Louis Gates

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Each of us views life through a different lens. What we think is colored by the baggage we carry, an...
LAURIE BUCHANAN, PHD
If the means were available, we could trace our ancestry - yours and mine - back to the first blob o...
CLIFFORD D. SIMAK
Are you taking us to the beach?" - Dan Cahill
JUDE WATSON
It looks ancient," - Amy Cahill
JUDE WATSON
We'll sort of get over the marriage first and then maybe look at the kids. But obviously we want...
PRINCE WILLIAM
Family is the most important thing in the world.
PRINCESS DIANA
You philosophers are lucky men. You write on paper and paper is patient. Unfortunate Empress that I ...
CATHERINE THE GREAT
I was always told from the hat-makers that you should have your hair up because it shows the hat mor...
ZARA PHILLIPS
My dad's not a big talker.
ZARA PHILLIPS
My dad can be pretty critical sometimes.
ZARA PHILLIPS
You cannot make horses 'safe.'
ZARA PHILLIPS
I don't have a stylist, and I do most of my shopping online, just because it's easier. I don...
ZARA PHILLIPS
My dear mamma is quite right when she says that we must lay down principles and not depart from them...
MARIE ANTOINETTE
PS: It's all gossip about the prince. I'm not in the habit of taking my girlfriends' bea...
WALLIS SIMPSON
I hate this place. I shall hate it to my grave.
WALLIS SIMPSON
I look a hundred and weigh 110 - you won't love me when you see the wreck England has made me.
WALLIS SIMPSON
A woman's life can really be a succession of lives, each revolving around some emotionally compe...
WALLIS SIMPSON
You have no idea how hard it is to live out a great romance.
WALLIS SIMPSON
For a gallant spirit there can never be defeat.
WALLIS SIMPSON
There is nothing new except what has been forgotten.
MARIE ANTOINETTE
I have seen all, I have heard all, I have forgotten all.
MARIE ANTOINETTE
I speak Spanish to God, Italian to women, French to men, and German to my horse.
CHARLES V
It would be doing me great injustice to think that I have any feeling of indifference to my country;...
MARIE ANTOINETTE
I found Rome a city of bricks and left it a city of marble.
AUGUSTUS
A crown is merely a hat that lets the rain in.
FREDERICK THE GREAT
Nothing is more useless in developing a nation's economy than a gun, and nothing blocks the road...
HUSSEIN OF JORDAN
It is necessary to try to pass one's self always; this occupation ought to last as long as life.
QUEEN CHRISTINA
There's nothing like a jolly good disaster to get people to start doing something.
PRINCE CHARLES
I don't even know how to use a parking meter, let alone a phone box.
PRINCESS DIANA
What must it be like for a little boy to read that daddy never loved mummy?
PRINCESS DIANA
The kindness and affection from the public have carried me through some of the most difficult period...
PRINCESS DIANA
People think that at the end of the day a man is the only answer. Actually, a fulfilling job is bett...
PRINCESS DIANA
I don't want expensive gifts; I don't want to be bought. I have everything I want. I just wa...
PRINCESS DIANA
There were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded.
PRINCESS DIANA
I think the biggest disease the world suffers from in this day and age is the disease of people feel...
PRINCESS DIANA
Everyone of us needs to show how much we care for each other and, in the process, care for ourselves...
PRINCESS DIANA
The biggest disease this day and age is that of people feeling unloved.
PRINCESS DIANA
When you are happy you can forgive a great deal.
PRINCESS DIANA
I want to walk into a room, be it a hospital for the dying or a hospital for the sick children, and ...
PRINCESS DIANA
If you find someone you love in your life, then hang on to that love.
PRINCESS DIANA
Anywhere I see suffering, that is where I want to be, doing what I can.
PRINCESS DIANA
HIV does not make people dangerous to know, so you can shake their hands and give them a hug: Heaven...
PRINCESS DIANA
Being a princess isn't all it's cracked up to be.
PRINCESS DIANA
I like to be a free spirit. Some don't like that, but that's the way I am.
PRINCESS DIANA
When girls are educated, you get effects that cascade throughout society.
QUEEN RANIA OF JORDAN
Of course democracy is good, but it is a process, not a prescription.
QUEEN RANIA OF JORDAN
People sometimes think of 'queen' as a title that's shrouded with protocol and formality...
QUEEN RANIA OF JORDAN
Being popular comes when you have everything. But to be liked, it means that you must be treating pe...
QUEEN RANIA OF JORDAN
For many, the hijab represents modesty, piety and devotion to God, and I truly respect that. But the...
QUEEN RANIA OF JORDAN
I want to be that person who could sacrifice everything for others.
QUEEN RANIA OF JORDAN
If one girl with courage is a revolution, imagine what feats we can achieve together.
QUEEN RANIA OF JORDAN
Iron hand in a velvet glove.
CHARLES V
The greatest and noblest pleasure which we have in this world is to discover new truths, and the nex...
FREDERICK THE GREAT
No one would feel embarrassed about seeking help for a child if they broke their arm - and we really...
KATE MIDDLETON
Some children are tackling tough times without the support that can help them because the adults in ...
KATE MIDDLETON
I have learned that delivering the best possible palliative care to children is vital, providing chi...
KATE MIDDLETON
We have seen that two heads are better than one when dealing with a mental health problem.
KATE MIDDLETON
Yes, well I really hope I can make a difference, even in the smallest way. I am looking forward to h...
KATE MIDDLETON
I think it's very important that you make your own decision about what you are. Therefore you...
PRINCE WILLIAM
For our part, we shall continue to work for the new dawn when all the Children of Abraham and their ...
HUSSEIN OF JORDAN
Cambodia wanted no part of SEATO. We would look after ourselves as neutrals and Buddhists.
NORODOM SIHANOUK
Here in the Netherlands there are towns that take part in the throwing of toilet bowls for a laugh.
WILLEM-ALEXANDER OF THE NETHERLANDS
I venture to allude to the impression which seemed generally to prevail among their brethren across ...
KING GEORGE V
I realize that much will be asked of me, yet I am resolved to accept it as a great and splendid task...
BEATRIX OF THE NETHERLANDS
John Foster Dulles had called on me in his capacity as Secretary of State, and he had exhausted ever...
NORODOM SIHANOUK
In praising Antony I have dispraised Caesar.
CLEOPATRA
I get a huge buzz from spending time with kids.
PRINCE HARRY
I'd rather go by bus.
PRINCE CHARLES
You will find in me a loyal head of state who is ready listen and understand, warn and advise as wel...
FELIPE VI OF SPAIN
There must not be favoured treatment for those occupying a position of public responsibility.
FELIPE VI OF SPAIN
We mustn't hesitate to cut corruption at its roots.
FELIPE VI OF SPAIN
Millions of Spaniards have Catalonia in their hearts.
FELIPE VI OF SPAIN
I begin my reign with profound emotion at the honour of accepting the Crown, aware of the responsibi...
FELIPE VI OF SPAIN
I don't see why OPEC countries should continue to cut production just to keep the price of oil h...
HAMAD BIN KHALIFA AL THANI
I really don't want you to think of Qatar as a hydrocarbon country alone. We know that hydrocarb...
HAMAD BIN KHALIFA AL THANI
The reform process began with the historic consensus on the Charter of National Action, in which the...
HAMAD BIN ISA AL KHALIFA
By being friends with all, we are not alone.
HAMAD BIN ISA AL KHALIFA
History shows that no enemy remains hostile forever, nor do friends remain friendly forever. For tha...
HAMAD BIN ISA AL KHALIFA
We should face reality and our past mistakes in an honest, adult way. Boasting of glory does not mak...
HUSSEIN OF JORDAN
It is in the midst of disasters that bold men grow bolder.
HENRY IV
To be honest dinner conversations was the worst bit about being a child and listening to the boring ...
PRINCE HARRY
My people and I have come to an agreement which satisfied us both. They are to say what they please,...
FREDERICK THE GREAT
My main mistake was to have made an ancient people advance by forced marches toward independence, he...
MOHAMMED REZA PAHLAVI
It is a natural virtue incident to our sex to be pitiful of those that are afflicted.
ELIZABETH I
You can't comfort the afflicted with afflicting the comfortable.
PRINCESS DIANA
We made our entrance into Paris. As for honors, we received all that we could possibly imagine; but ...
MARIE ANTOINETTE
I am convinced that our movement will be more demoralized and weakened by blind and uncritical admir...
MARIE LOUISE
I always admired virtue - but I could never imitate it.
CHARLES II
Celerity is never more admired than by the negligent.
CLEOPATRA
Sometimes it just means flying from Bogota to New York via Amsterdam to have a day with your kids. W...
WILLEM-ALEXANDER OF THE NETHERLANDS
Hugs can do great amounts of good - especially for children.
PRINCESS DIANA
For to tempt and to be tempted are things very nearly allied - whenever feeling has anything to do i...
CATHERINE THE GREAT
Of course we are coming to invest in Germany - that is certain. Most airplanes in the fleet of Qatar...
HAMAD BIN KHALIFA AL THANI
Democracy is not just constitutional and legislative rules; it is a culture and practice and adherin...
HAMAD BIN ISA AL KHALIFA
My cousin Francis and I are in perfect accord - he wants Milan, and so do I.
CHARLES V
Muslims are not bloodthirsty people. Islam is a religion of peace that forbids the killing of the in...
ABDULLAH OF SAUDI ARABIA
I praise loudly. I blame softly.
CATHERINE THE GREAT
Of course, I do have a slight advantage over the rest of you. It helps in a pinch to be able to remi...
EDWARD VIII
I'm a third-culture child. It's an interesting concept. Having an American father, a South A...
MARIE-CHANTAL CLAIRE
Some brides stress, some don't. I think I'm a serene bride.
CHARLENE, PRINCESS OF MONACO

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The thing about black history is that the truth is so much more complex than anything you could make...
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Brazil is the second blackest nation in the world.
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So when you do your family tree and Margaret Cho does hers, and... Wanda Sykes and John Legend... we...
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I give a speech to the black freshmen at Harvard each year, and I say, 'You can like Mozart and ...
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The sad truth is that the civil rights movement cannot be reborn until we identify the causes of bla...
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Cuba is like going to a whole other planet. It's so different but it's so similar to the Uni...
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In America there is institutional racism that we all inherit and participate in, like breathing the ...
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We can revolutionize the attitude of inner city brown and black kids to learning. We need a civil ri...
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If Martin Luther King came back, he'd say we need another civil rights movement built on class n...
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You have to have a canon so the next generation can come along and explode it.
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What people forget is that the most radical thing about Obama is that he was the first black man in ...
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It's not white versus black any more, it's haves versus have-nots. Unless the black middle-c...
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But you see, our society is still trapped in this binary, black/white logic and that has had some ve...
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People don't realize what a brilliant politician Lincoln was. Looking back, we want to ascribe a...
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The historical basis for the gap between the black middle class and underclass shows that ending dis...
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I think that the roots of racism have always been economic, and I think people are desperate and sca...
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Patriotism is best exemplified through auto-critique. When you're willing to stand up within the...
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Lincoln had a tremendous capacity for personal growth - more than any other American President.
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Ever since I watched 'Roots,' I've dreamed of tracing my African ancestry and helping ot...
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In America one drop of black ancestry makes you black.
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I want to be a figure for prison reform. I think that the criminal justice system is rotten.
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Most black leaders, whether left, right or center, from Frederick Douglas and Martin Delaney on in t...
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The sad truth is that without complex business partnerships between African elites and European trad...
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One principle I've been fighting for that doesn't endear me to a lot of people is that black...
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Suffering does not necessarily ennoble you.
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My family and our neighbors and friends thought of Africa and its Africans as extensions of the ster...
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My father and I made genetics history. We were the first African-Americans and the first father and ...
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All historians generalize from particulars. And often, if you look at a historian's footnotes, t...
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There's a boom in genealogy now. With ancestry.com and other sites digitizing so many of the rec...
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For as long as I can remember, I have been passionately intrigued by 'Africa,' by the word i...
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I would like to do a series about sequencing the human genome, and also analyze more human diversity...
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The Right insists that anyone can escape poverty by working hard but that is simply not the case.
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Well, certainly one of the ironies of the success of affirmative action is that the middle class wit...
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We can't all work in the inner city. And, I don't even think that it is incumbent upon an Af...
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My father lived to be 97 and played bridge every day up to the end, so I've got a 50 percent cha...
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The African American's relationship to Africa has long been ambivalent, at least since the early...
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I first learned that there were black people living in some place called other than the United State...
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I rebel at the notion that I can't be part of other groups, that I can't construct identitie...
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You notice patterns. White guests often are mortified - that word again - when they learn their ance...
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So many people of color who made major contributions to American history have been trapped in the pu...
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Fortunately, in President Obama, the child of an African and an American, we finally have a leader w...
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My mom, God rest her soul - she liked nicknames. In the womb she named me Skip. There was another bl...
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Wherever you go in the history of America, there have been Black people making contributions, but th...
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No one thinks of Mexico and Peru as black. But Mexico and Peru together got 700,000 Africans in the ...
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I knew that there were black people in Africa, of course, unfortunately because of movies such as &#...
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So, Mexico, Brazil, they wanted their national culture to be 'blackish' - really brown, a be...
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Color categories are on steroids in Latin America. I find that fascinating. It's very difficult ...
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Politicians will not put forth programs aimed at the problems of poor blacks while their turnout rem...
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I believe in the law. I think we have a great system of justice. But I do think that system of justi...
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Censorship is to art as lynching is to justice.
HENRY LOUIS GATES JR.
The precise form of an individual's activity is determined, of course, by the equipment with which h...
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Most people are unable to write because they are unable to think, and they are unable to think becau...
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Science, at bottom, is really anti-intellectual. It always distrusts pure reason, and demands the pr...
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The worst government is the most moral. One composed of cynics is often very tolerant and humane. B...
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Democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey cage.
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A celebrity is one who is known to many persons he is glad he doesn't know.
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Adultery is the application of democracy to love
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A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin.
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The cynics are right nine times out of ten.
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There is something even more valuable to civilization than wisdom, and that is character
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I give you Chicago. It is not London and Harvard. It is not Paris and buttermilk. It is American in ...
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A man always blames the woman who fools him. In the same way he blames the door he walks into in ...
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Who ever heard, indeed, of an autobiography that was not (interesting)? I can recall none in all the...
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No matter how happily a woman may be married, it always pleases her to discover that there is a nic...
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Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public.
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The Liberals have many tails, and chase them all
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If you want peace, work for justice.
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
Idealist: One who, on noticing that a rose smells better than a cabbage, concludes that it will als...
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Bachelors know more about women than married men do. If they didn't, they'd be married too.
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Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable.
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Sunday School: A prison in which children do penance for the evil conscience of their parents
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Going to school does not make a person educated, any more than going to a garage makes a person a ca...
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Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party ...
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Misogynist: A man who hates women as much as women hate one another
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You can't kiss an oil well.
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Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under.
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I believe that all government is evil, in that all government must necessarily make war on liberty, ...
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Only a government that is rich and safe can afford to be a democracy, for democracy is the most expe...
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Remorse is regret that one waited so long to do it
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It is not materialism that is the chief curse of the world, as pastors teach, but idealism. Men get ...
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Injustice is relatively easy to bear; what stings is justice
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There is only one honest impulse at the bottom of Puritanism, and that is the impulse to punish the ...
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Opera in English is, in the main, about as sensible as baseball in Italian.
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Belief in our mortality, the sense that we are eventually going to crack up and be extinguished like...
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A man always remembers his first love with special tenderness, but after that he begins to bunch the...
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Socialism: nothing more than the theory that the slave is always more virtuous than his master
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The theory seems to be that as long as a man is a failure he is one of God's children, but that as s...
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For centuries, theologians have been explaining the unknowable in terms of the-not-worth-knowing.
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All government, of course, is against liberty.
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It is now quite lawful for a Catholic woman to avoid pregnancy by a resort to mathematics, though sh...
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A home is not a mere transient shelter: its essence lies in the personalities of the people who live...
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The capacity of human beings to bore one another seems to be vastly greater than that of any other a...
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Love is an emotion that is based on an opinion of women that is impossible for those who have had an...
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Men have a much better time of it than women; for one thing they marry later; for another thing they...
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There are some politicians who, if their constituents were cannibals, would promise them missionarie...
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Wealth - any income that is at least one hundred dollars more a year than the income of one's wife's...
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The American people, taken one with another, constitute the most timorous, sniveling, poltroonish, i...
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War will never cease until babies begin to come into the world with larger cerebrums and smaller adr...
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The older I get the more I admire and crave competence, just simple competence, in any field from ad...
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Have you ever watched a crab on the shore crawling backward in search of the Atlantic Ocean, and mis...
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It is impossible to imagine the universe run by a wise, just and omnipotent God, but it is quite eas...
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A newspaper is a device for making the ignorant more ignorant and the crazy crazier.
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The idea that the sole aim of punishment is to prevent crime is obviously grounded upon the theory t...
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[Rudolph Valentino was] what is commonly called for want of a better name, a gentleman. In brief, Va...
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For every problem there is a solution which is simple, clean and wrong.
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Complete masculinity and stupidity are often indistinguishable
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Men are sad because they have to die so soon, women are sad because they were born so long ago.
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An individual who forces himself to accept this or that idea, or who pretends to accept this or that...
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The effort to reconcile science and religion is almost always made, not by theologians, but by scien...
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Temptation is an irresistible force at work on a movable body
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The cosmos is a gigantic flywheel making 10,000 revolutions per minute. Man is a sick fly taking a d...
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Opera in English is, in the main, just about as sensible as baseball in Italian.
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The fundamentalist mind, running in a single rut for fifty years, is now quite unable to comprehend ...
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A judge is a law student who marks his own examination papers.
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Say what you want about the Ten Commandments, you must always come back to the pleasant fact that th...
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He marries best who puts it off until it is too late
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After all, all he did was string together a lot of old, well-known quotations.
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The common argument that crime is caused by poverty is a kind of slander on the poor
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Theology-An effort to explain the unknowable by putting it into terms of the not worth knowing
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Church: A place in which gentlemen who have never been to Heaven brag about it to people who will n...
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On one issue, at least, men and women agree: they both distrust women
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The way to hold a husband is to keep him a little jealous; the way to lose him is to keep him a litt...
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When women kiss, it always reminds one of prizefighters shaking hands
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He (the businessman) is the only man who is forever apologizing for his occupation
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The chief knowledge that a man gets from reading books is the knowledge that very few of them are wo...
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There is a bird that knows no closed season - and if he won't come down to Texas oil stock, or one-n...
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When women kiss it always reminds me of prizefighters shaking hands
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A metaphysician is one who, when you remark that twice two makes four, demands to know what you mean...
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As the arteries grow hard, the heart grows soft.
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No normal man ever fell in love after 30 when the kidneys begin to disintegrate.
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One yearns unspeakably for a composer who gives out his pair of honest themes, and then develops the...
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I go on working for the same reason that a hen goes on laying eggs.
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Men are the only animals who devote themselves assiduously to making one another unhappy.
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To denounce moralizing out of hand is to pronounce a moral judgment
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People will believe what they want to believe
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Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy
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The first kiss is stolen by the man; the last is begged by the woman.
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The chief value of money lies in the fact that one lives in a world in which it is overestimated.
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The truth that survives is simply the lie that is pleasantest to believe
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The average man doesn't want to be free. He wants to be safe.
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Democracy is also a form of worship. It is the worship of Jackals by Jackasses.
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Change is not progress
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The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led t...
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It is hard to believe that a man is telling the truth when you know that you would lie if you were i...
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
A Sunday school is a prison in which children do penance for the evil conscience of their parents.
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
Most people want security in this world, not liberty.
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
The aim of medicine is surely not to make men virtuous; it is to safeguard and rescue them from the ...
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
School days are the unhappiest in the whole span if human existence. They are full of dull, unintell...
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
It is inaccurate to say that I hate everything. I am strongly in favor of common sense, common hones...
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
Old age ain't no place for sissies.
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
A professional politician is a professionally dishonourable man. In order to get anywhere near high ...
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
A man always blames the woman who fools him. In the same way he blames the door he walks into in the...
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
Any man who, having a child or children he can't support, proceeds to have another should be sterili...
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
Husbands never become good; they merely become proficient
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
It is a sin to believe evil of others, but it is seldom a mistake.
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
Economic independence is the foundation of the only sort of freedom worth a damn
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
Free speech is too dangerous to a democracy to be permitted
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
The argument that capital punishment degrades the state is moonshine, for if that were true then it ...
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
It is Hell, of course, that makes priests powerful, not Heaven, for after thousands of years of so-c...
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
The only really happy folk are married women and single men.
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
God is a Republican, and Santa Claus is a Democrat
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
The great secret of happiness in love is to be glad that the other fellow married her
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
Nothing is so abject and pathetic as a politician who has lost his job, save only a retired stud-hor...
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
The trouble with Communism is the Communists, just as the trouble with Christianity is the Christian...
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
Evangelical Christianity, as everyone knows, is founded upon hate, as the Christianity of Christ was...
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
A national political campaign is better than the best circus ever heard of, with a mass baptism and ...
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
Poetry has done enough when it charms, but prose must also convince
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
A fool who, after plain warning, persists in dosing himself with dangerous drugs should be free to d...
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
The way for newspapers to meet the competition of radio and television is simply to get out better p...
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
There is only one justification for having sinned, and that is to be glad of it
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
At the moment of the contemporary metaphysician's loftiest flight, when he is most gratefully warmed...
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
To die for an idea; it is unquestionably noble. But how much nobler it would be if men died for idea...
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
To wage a war for a purely moral reason is as absurd as to ravish a woman for a purely moral reason
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
It doesn't take a majority to make a rebellion; it takes only a few determined leaders and a sound c...
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
Every man sees in his relatives, and especially in his cousins, a series of grotesque caricatures of...
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
Suicide is belated acquiescence in the opinion of one's wife's relatives
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
The objection of the scandalmonger is not that she tells of racy doings, but that she pretends to be...
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
Lying is not only excusable; it is not only innocent; it is, above all, necessary and unavoidable. W...
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
I believe that no discovery of fact, however trivial, can be wholly useless to the race, and that no...
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
The one permanent emotion of the inferior man is fear - fear of the unknown, the complex, the inexpl...
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
He uses his sources as a drunkard uses lampposts; not to light him upon his way, but to dissimulate ...
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
A man loses his sense of direction after four drinks; a woman loses hers after four kisses
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
In this world of sin and sorrow there is always something to be thankful for; as for me, I rejoice t...
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
Bachelors know more about women than married men; if they didn't they'd be married too.
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
One seldom discovers a true believer that is worth knowing
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
It is only the savage, whether of the African bush or of the American gospel tent, who pretends to k...
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
Every man is thoroughly happy twice in his life: just after he has met his first love, and just afte...
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
The fact that a human brain of high amperage, otherwise highly efficient, may have a hole in it is s...
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
You come into the world with nothing, and the purpose of your life is to make something out of nothi...
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN