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Morality is doing what is right, no matter what you are told. Religion is doing what you are told, no matter what is right.

H. L. Mencken

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
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
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
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
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
A sense of humor always withers in the presence of the messianic delusion, like justice and the truth in front of patriotic passion.
H. L. MENCKEN

Humor Justice Passion Patriot Presence
Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.
H. L. MENCKEN

Belief Freedom Ignorance Rule Wisdom
On one issue, at least, men and women agree. They both distrust women.
H. L. MENCKEN

Funny Issues Man Trust Women
The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.
H. L. MENCKEN

Freedom Humanity Peace Rule Save War
The one permanent emotion of the inferior man is fear – fear of the unknown, the complex, the inexplicable. What he wants above everything else is safety.
H. L. MENCKEN

Courage Emotion Fear Himself Men Safety
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.
H. L. MENCKEN

Beginning Fight Freedom Human Law Oppression Stop Time
Misogynist: A man who hates women as much as women hate one another.
H. L. MENCKEN

Feminism Hate Man Women
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
Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.
H. L. MENCKEN

Democracy Deserve Freedom People Theory
Journalism is to politician as dog is to lamp-post.
H. L. MENCKEN

Career Dog Journalism Politics
Sometimes the idiots outvote the sensible people.
H. L. MENCKEN

Democracy People Vote

Morality is doing what is right, no matter what you are told. Religion is doing what you are told, no matter what is right.

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Morality is doing what is right, no matter what you are told. Religion is doing what you are told, no matter what is right.

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