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You can’t do anything about the length of your life, but you can do something about its width and depth.

H. L. Mencken

The ideal way to get rid of any infectious disease would be to shoot instantly every person who comes down with it.
H. L. MENCKEN

Death Freedom Ideal Kill Sick
Sometimes the idiots outvote the sensible people.
H. L. MENCKEN

Democracy People Vote
Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.
H. L. MENCKEN

Belief Freedom Ignorance Rule Wisdom
Equality before the law is probably forever unattainable. It is a noble ideal, but it can never be realized, for what men value in this world is not rights but privileges.
H. L. MENCKEN

Equality Forever Ideal Law Men Priviledge Right World
Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under.
H. L. MENCKEN

Freedom Government Integrity Live Men Shame
It is even harder for the average ape to believe that he has descended from man.
H. L. MENCKEN

Believe Funny Hard Man Transformation
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.
H. L. MENCKEN

Citizenship Liberty Lost People War
It is inaccurate to say that I hate everything. I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty, and common decency. This makes me forever ineligible for public office.
H. L. MENCKEN

Forever Freedom Hate Honesty Myself Strong
A church is a place in which gentlemen who have never been to Heaven brag about it to persons who will never get there.
H. L. MENCKEN

Funny Heaven Humor Person Place
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.
H. L. MENCKEN

Children Failure God Man Success Theory
The State doesn’t just want you to obey, it wants to make you WANT to obey.
H. L. MENCKEN

Government Politics Yourself
The chief difference between free capitalism and State socialism seems to be this: that under the former a man pursues his own advantage openly, frankly and honestly, whereas under the latter he does so hypocritically and under false pretenses.
H. L. MENCKEN

Differences Freedom Honesty Hypocrisy Men Pursue
The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
H. L. MENCKEN

Democracy End Freedom Government Imagination Policy Practice Safety
In this world of sin and sorrow there is always something to be thankful for; as for me, I rejoice that I am not a Republican.
H. L. MENCKEN

Freedom Gratitude Myself Thankful World
The demagogue is one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots.
H. L. MENCKEN

Himself Men Oneself
For every problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
H. L. MENCKEN

Choice Moral Philosophy Problem Simplicity Wrong

You can’t do anything about the length of your life, but you can do something about its width and depth.

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You can’t do anything about the length of your life, but you can do something about its width and depth.

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