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Imagine the Creator as a low comedian, and at once the world becomes explicable.

H. L. Mencken

Government’s great contribution to human wisdom is the discovery that the taxpayer has more than one pocket.
H. L. MENCKEN

Discovery Government Human Liberty Wisdom
Free speech is too dangerous to a democracy to be permitted.
H. L. MENCKEN

Danger Democracy Freedom Scare
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 only thing wrong with Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address was that it was the South, not the North, that was fighting for a government of the people, by the people and for the people.
H. L. MENCKEN

Fight Government People Wrong
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.
H. L. MENCKEN

Daring Lying Man People Success Truth Violence
When fanatics are on top there is no limit to oppression.
H. L. MENCKEN

Limitation Oppression Power War
Love is like war: easy to begin but very hard to stop.
H. L. MENCKEN

Easy Hard Love Relationship Stop War
The best teacher is not the one who knows most but the one who is most capable of reducing knowledge to that simple compound of the obvious and wonderful.
H. L. MENCKEN

Education Knowledge Simplicity Teaching Wonderful
After all is said and done, a hell lot of a lot more is said than done.
H. L. MENCKEN

Action Hell Talk
There is no idea so stupid that you can’t find a professor who will believe it.
H. L. MENCKEN

Believe Ideas Stupidity Teaching Yourself
Laws are no longer made by a rational process of public discussion; they are made by a process of blackmail and intimidation, and they are executed in the same manner
H. L. MENCKEN

Death Fear Law Process Talk
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.
H. L. MENCKEN

Democracy Freedom Right Rule Success War
What men value in this world is not rights but privileges.
H. L. MENCKEN

Leadership Men Priviledge Right Value
The average man does not get pleasure out of an idea because he thinks it is true; he thinks it is true because he gets pleasure out of it.
H. L. MENCKEN

Himself Ideas Man Thinking True
Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.
H. L. MENCKEN

Anger Black Funny Hands Time

Imagine the Creator as a low comedian, and at once the world becomes explicable.

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Imagine the Creator as a low comedian, and at once the world becomes explicable.

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Popular Authors

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