Criticism is prejudice made plausible. ... by H. L. Mencken

Criticism is prejudice made plausible. ...
by H. L. Mencken

A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers,
looks around for a coffin.
- H. L. Mencken

The worst government is often the most moral.
One composed of cynics is often very tolerant and humane.
But when fanatics are on top there is no limit to oppression.
- H. L. Mencken

Strike an average between what a woman thinks of her husband
a month before she marries him
and what she thinks of him a year afterward,
and you will have the truth about him.
- H. L. Mencken

Puritanism. The haunting fear that
someone, somewhere, may be happy.
- H. L. Mencken

For centuries, theologians have been explaining
the unknowable in terms of the-not-worth-knowing.
- H. L. Mencken

For every complex problem,
there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
- H.L. Mencken

The urge to save humanity is almost always
a false front for the urge to rule.
- H. L. Mencken

The objection to Puritans is not that
they try to make us think as they do,
but that they try to make us do as they think.
- H. L. Mencken

Life is a constant oscillation
between the sharp horns of dilemmas.
- H. L. Mencken

Morality is the theory that every human act
must be either right or wrong,
and that 99 % of them are wrong.
- H. L. Mencken

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

Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public.
- H. L. Mencken

It takes a long while for a naturally trustful person
to reconcile himself to the idea that
after all God will not help him
- H. L. Mencken

I believe that it is better to tell the truth than a lie.
I believe it is better to be free than to be a slave.
And I believe it is better to know than to be ignorant.
- H.L. Mencken

We must respect the other fellow's religion,
but only in the sense and to the extent
that we respect his theory that
his wife is beautiful and his children smart.
- H. L. Mencken

Many people excuse their own faults
but judge other persons harshly.
We should reverse this attitude
by excusing others' shortcomings
and by harshly examining our own.
- Paramahansa Yogananda

I am sorry to think that you do not get a man's
most effective criticism until you provoke him.
Severe truth is expressed with some bitterness.
- Henry David Thoreau

You can't let praise or criticism get to you.
It's a weakness to get caught up in either one.
- John Wooden

My criticism of most religions is that
they don't allow criticism.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

An unsolicited suggestion is
undistinguishable from a criticism.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Conventional people are roused to fury
by departure from convention,
largely because they regard such departure
as a criticism of themselves.
- Bertrand Russell

Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary.
It fulfills the same function as pain in the human body.
It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things.
- Winston Churchill

If a child lives with criticism,
he learns to condemn.
...
If a child lives with fear,
he learns to be apprehensive.
...
If a child lives with encouragement,
he learns to be confident.
...
If a child lives with acceptance,
he learns to love.
- Dorothy Law Nolte

Completion:
It is time for the project to be over.
You submitted the proposal, you painted your house,
you passed-in the term paper.
Whatever praise or criticism you received,
it is now time to move on to your next project.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

For those who do not think,
it is best at least to rearrange
their prejudices once in a while.
- Luther Burbank

Education is a method whereby
one acquires a higher grade of prejudices.
- Laurence J. Peter

There is no neutrality.
There is only greater or lesser
awareness of one's bias.
- Phyllis Rose

Indifference and neglect often
do much more damage than outright dislike.
- J. K. Rowling

NO ONE is really different;
each of us is actually a member of the human race.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Most people don't CHOOSE their value system -
they simply inherit the beliefs of their parents and community.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

No one is to be called an enemy,
all are your benefactors, and no one does you harm.
You have no enemy except yourselves.
- St. Francis of Assisi

The very ink with which all history
is written is merely fluid prejudice.
- Mark Twain

Prejudice is a two-edged sword.
Like the steel sort of sword, it's very sharp, very useful,
and very dangerous if not properly mastered.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

When our thoughts - which bring actions -
are filled with hate against anyone, Negro or white,
we are in a living hell.
That is as real as hell will ever be.
- George Washington Carver

Everything we say, do, think, and feel
is a product of our personal history
and the collective history of humankind.
Our name for these histories is "prejudice."
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

I have a dream that my four little children will one day
live in a nation where they will
not be judged by the color of their skin,
but by the content of their character.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery,
I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.
- Abraham Lincoln

Misunderstanding arising from ignorance breeds fear,
and fear remains the greatest enemy of peace.
- Lester B. Pearson

My decision to register women confirms what is already obvious
throughout our society -
that women are now providing
all types of skills in every profession.
The military should be no exception.
- Jimmy Carter

Naturally, every age thinks that all ages before it were prejudiced,
and today we think this more than ever, and are just as wrong
as all previous ages that thought so.
How often have we not seen the truth condemned!
It is sad but unfortunately true that man learns nothing from history.
- Carl Jung

Instead of being presented with stereotypes
by age, sex, color, class, or religion,
children must have the opportunity
to learn that within each range,
some people are loathsome and some are delightful.
- Margaret Mead

Today's acorns grow into the oak trees of thirty years hence.
But what acorns are we sowing today?
Imagine what an acorn-sized bit of prejudice or hatred would grow into.
Imagine what an acorn-sized bit of pollution can become.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness,
and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts.
Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things
cannot be acquired by vegetating
in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.
- Mark Twain

In this world, the greatest courage is to drop the mind aside.
The bravest man is who can see the world
without the barrier of the mind, just as it is.
It is tremendously different, utterly beautiful.
There is nobody who is inferior and there is nobody who is superior -
there are no distinctions.
- Osho

In olden times sacrifices were made at the altar -
a practice which is still continued.
- Helen Rowland

Ennui has made more gamblers than avarice,
more drunkards than thirst,
and perhaps as many suicides as despair.
- The Buddha

The rich are not born skeptical or cynical.
They are made that way by events, circumstances.
- Paul Getty

Rules are mostly made to be broken
and are too often for the lazy to hide behind.
- Douglas MacArthur

You know your god is man-made when he
hates all the same people you do.
- Anonymous

People will forget what you said,
people will forget what you did,
but people will never forget
how you made them feel.
- Maya Angelou

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- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

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Criticism is prejudice made plausible. ...by H. L. Mencken

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Criticism is prejudice made plausible. ...
by H. L. Mencken