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Quote by H. L. Mencken

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Mencken Chrestomathy

This book compiles a selection of writings by the American journalist, critic, and satirist H.L. Mencken, showcasing his wit and insight on various subjects including politics, culture, and society. more

Author

H. L. Mencken
H. L. Mencken

H. L. Mencken was an American journalist, essayist, satirist, cultural critic, and scholar of American English. Born on September 12, 1880, and passing away on January 29, 1956, Mencken is renowned for his significant contributions to American culture and language, particularly through his satirical essays and critical analyses of the American establishment. more

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“At a time when the respectable bourgeois youngsters of my generation were college freshmen, oppressed by simian sophomores and affronted with balderdash daily and hourly by chalky pedagogues, I was at large in a wicked seaport of half a million people, with a front seat at every public show, as free of the night as of day, and getting earfuls of instruction in a hundred giddy arcana, none of them taught in schools.... [But] if I neglected the humanities, I was meanwhile laying in all the worldly wisdom of a police lieutenant, a bartender, a shyster lawyer, or a midwife.”

PeopleIfsShowsSchoolNightHumanityEducationHalfMillionsGenerationsFrontsTaughtCollegeHundredPoliceLawyerSeatsWickedInstructionOppressedWorldlyNeglectedRespectableBourgeoisMy GenerationYoungstersFreshmanBartenderGiddyMidwifeLieutenantsSophomoreWorldly WisdomCollege Freshmen
Author:H. L. Mencken
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“I well recall my horror when I heard for the first time, of a journalist who had laid in a pair of what were then called bicycle pants and taken to golf; it was as if I had encountered a studhorse with his hair done up in frizzes, and pink bowknots peeking out of them. It seemed, in some vague way, ignominious, and even a bit indelicate.”

IfsWayFirstsWellsDoneBitsTakenHeardHairHorrorFirst TimeGolfJournalismJournalistPairsPantsRecallsVagueBicyclePeeking
Author:H. L. Mencken
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“In my day a reporter who took an assignment was wholly on his own until he got back to the office, and even then he was little molested until his copy was turned in at the desk; today he tends to become only a homunculus at the end of a telephone wire, and the reduction of his observations to prose is commonly farmed out to literary castrati who never leave the office, and hence never feel the wind of the world in their faces or see anything with their own eyes.”

WorldFeelsLittlesEndsEyeTodayFacesWindOfficeObservationJournalismProseCopiesDesksReportersTelephonesWireReductionAssignments
Author:H. L. Mencken
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“Communism, like any other revealed religion, is largely made up of prophecies. When they fail to come off its clergy simply say that they will be realized later on. Thus, if we have another boom, they will argue that the collapse of capitalism is only postponed. The fact that the greatest booms ever heard of followed Marx's formal prophecy of the downfall of capitalism is already forgotten, just as millions have long since forgotten the early Christian prophecy that the end of the world was at hand. The first Christians accepted postponements as docilely as the Communists of today.”

IfsWorldFirstsLongMadeEndsFactsHandsTodayChristianChristianityMillionsFailingHeardCapitalismForgottenArguingAcceptedCommunismCommunistCollapseFormalProphecyEnd Of The WorldDownfallClergyPostponement
Book:Minority Report
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“Man is the yokel par excellence, the booby unmatchable, the king dupe of the cosmos. He is chronically and unescapably deceived, not only by the other animals and by the delusive face of nature herself--by his incomparable talent for searching out and embracing what is false, and for overlooking and denying what is true.”

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Book:Prejudices: Third Series
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