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.


Henry Louis Mencken

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The men the American people admire most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest...
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the people who admire your wisdom the most, are most likely people that are stupider than you.
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Most men admire virtue who follow not her lore
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The most important job I'll ever have is spelled D-A-D.
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The most positive men are the most credulous.
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The most positive men are the most credulous.
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I want to be remembered for my poop jokes. Those are the most important kind.
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We mean by 'politics' the people's business - the most important business there is.
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Good men who exercise power are really the most fascinating of all people.
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Most bad," the host concluded. "If you ask me, something sinister lurks in men who avoid wine, games...
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The most important tool of my trade was a mirror.
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Hope is the most important four-letter word in the language.
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Winning - that's the most important to me. It's as simple as that.
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The most important influence in my childhood was my father.
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One of the most important roles of our journalists is to be watchdogs.
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Winning is the most important. Everything is consequence of that.
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Those men are most apt to be obsequious and conciliating abroad, who are under the discipline of shr...
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The African-American experience is one of the most important threads in the American tapestry.
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Fishes live in the sea, as men do on land: the great ones eat up the little ones.
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All the Men will be sailors then, untill the sea shall free them.
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A couple of customers interrupted [...] who wanted to know if we had some YA book about ants and ali...
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People tend to criticize those they most admire.
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The men who are really busiest have the most leisure for everything.
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The truth that makes men free is for the most part the truth which men prefer not to hear.
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Prayer is the most important thing that I do.
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The management of fertility is one of the most important functions of adulthood.
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The most important political office is that of the private citizen.
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Indeed, the most important product of knowledge is ignorance.
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HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
I have yet to meet (a socialist) who was not as gullible as a Mississippi darkey - nay, as a Mississ...
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
I never lecture, not because I am shy or a bad speaker, but simply because I detest the sort of peop...
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
The average schoolmaster is, and always must be, an ass
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
If he became convinced tomorrow that coming out for cannibalism would get him the votes he so sorely...
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
After all, the world is not our handiwork, and we are not responsible for what goes on in it, save w...
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people.
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
Conscience is a mother-in-law whose visit never ends
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
Perhaps the most revolting character that the United States ever produced was the Christian business...
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
What ass first let lose the doctrine that the suffrage is a high boon and voting a noble privilege? ...
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
If a politician found he had cannibals among his constituents, he would promise them missionaries fo...
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
A large part of altruism, even when it is perfectly honest, is grounded upon the fact that it is unc...
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
Many an American Congressman comes to Washington from a district attorney's office: you may be sure ...
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
What restrains us from killing is partly fear of punishment, partly moral scruple, and partly what m...
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
Do not overestimate the decency of the human race
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
Man is always looking for someone to boast to; woman is always looking for a shoulder to put her hea...
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
When I mount the scaffold at last these will be my farewell words to the sheriff: Say what you will ...
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
School teachers, taking them by and large, are probably the most ignorant and stupid class of men in...
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
The only kind of freedom that the mob can imagine is freedom to annoy and oppress its betters, and t...
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
And out of each (schoolhouse) is vomited the standard product of the New Pedagogy - an endless proce...
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
Every great wave of popular passion that rolls up on the prairies is dashed to spray when it strikes...
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
I never smoked a cigarette until I was nine.
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
Conscience is the inner voice that warns us somebody may be looking.
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
The lunatic fringe wags the underdog
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
Creator: a comedian whose audience is afraid to laugh
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
The formula of the argument is simple and familiar: to dispose of a problem all that is necessary is...
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
We must respect the other fellow's religion,but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect ...
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
I hate all sports as rabidly as a person who likes sports hates common sense.
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all; it is simply to reduce as many in...
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
All men are frauds. The only difference between them is that some admit it. I myself deny it.
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
To expect defeat is nine-tenths of defeat itself.
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
It is a peculiarity of the American mind that it regards any excursion into the truth as an adventur...
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
It is more blessed to give than receive; for example, wedding presents
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
Painting is the art of protecting flat surfaces from the weather and exposing them to the critic
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
Christian theology is not only opposed to the scientific spirit; it is opposed to every other form o...
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
A sense of humor always withers in the presence of the messianic delusion, like justice and truth in...
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
Religion is fundamentally opposed to everything I hold in veneration - courage, clear thinking, hone...
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
Love is like war; easy to begin but very hard to stop
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence.
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
Theology is the effort to explain the unknowable in terms of the not worth knowing.
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
School days, I believe, are the unhappiest in the whole span of human existence.
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
The demagogue is one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
What men value in this world is not rights but privileges
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
I believe that religion, generally speaking, has been a curse to mankind - that its modest and great...
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
Giving every man a vote has no more made men wise and free than Christianity has made them good
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
The urge to save humanity is almost always only a false face for the urge to rule it.
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
I believe that it is better to tell the truth than a lie. I believe it is better to be free than to ...
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN