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Criticism is prejudice made plausible.
- H. L. Mencken
Related topics: Cynical Cute Whimsey
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
Love is the delusion that one woman differs from another.
- 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
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Thank You,
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Marriage is a wonderful institution,
but who would want to live in an institution?
- H. L. Mencken
Legend: A lie that has attained the dignity of age.
- 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
Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence.
- H. L. Mencken
Love is like war: easy to begin but very hard to stop.
- H. L. Mencken
Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public.
- 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
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 believing mind is eternally impervious to evidence.
- H. L. Mencken
Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief
in the occurrence of the improbable.
- H. L. Mencken
Happiness is the china shop; love is the bull.
- H. L. Mencken
A good politician is quite as unthinkable as an honest burglar.
- H. L. Mencken
A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers,
looks around for a coffin.
- H. L. Mencken
Puritanism. The haunting fear that
someone, somewhere, may be happy.
- 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
The urge to save humanity is almost always
a false front for the urge to rule.
- H. L. Mencken
Conscience is a mother-in-law whose visit never ends.
- 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
Life is a constant oscillation
between the sharp horns of dilemmas.
- 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
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
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
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
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
To avoid criticism, do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing.
- Elbert Hubbard
You can't let praise or criticism get to you.
It's a weakness to get caught up in either one.
- John Wooden
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
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
My criticism of most religions is that
they don't allow criticism.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
There is no just and serene criticism as yet.
- Henry David Thoreau
Love is the absence of judgment.
- Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama
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
No culture can live if it attempts to be exclusive.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi
Share our similarities, celebrate our differences.
- M. Scott Peck
There is no neutrality.
There is only greater or lesser
awareness of one's bias.
- Phyllis Rose
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
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
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
Misunderstanding arising from ignorance breeds fear,
and fear remains the greatest enemy of peace.
- Lester B. Pearson
It is never too late to give up our prejudices.
- Henry David Thoreau
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
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.
For those who do not think,
it is best at least to rearrange
their prejudices once in a while.
- Luther Burbank
Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery,
I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.
- Abraham Lincoln
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
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
Education is a method whereby
one acquires a higher grade of prejudices.
- Laurence J. Peter
I am free of prejudice. I hate everyone equally.
- W. C. Fields
Travel is fatal to bigotry, prejudice, and narrow-mindedness.
- Mark Twain
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
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
Front yards are not made to walk in, but, at most, through,
and you could go in the back way.
- Henry David Thoreau
Friendship is like money, easier made than kept.
- Samuel Butler
Friends are born, not made.
- Henry Adams
Life is partly what we make it,
and partly what it is made by the friends we choose.
- Tehyi Hsieh
Our problems are man-made, therefore they may be solved by man.
And man can be as big as he wants.
No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings.
- John F. Kennedy
Not chance of birth or place has made us friends,
Being oftentimes of different tongues and nations,
But the endeavor for the selfsame ends,
With the same hopes, and fears, and aspirations.
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Happiness is not something ready made.
It comes from your own actions.
- Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama
Once made equal to man, woman becomes his superior.
- Socrates
Thank you for visiting: Criticism is prejudice made plausible. ... by H. L. Mencken.
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Jonathan Lockwood Huie
"The Philosopher of Happiness" - is the author of 100 Secrets for Living a Life You Love, co-author of Simply An Inspired Life, speaker, personal coach, and creator of the popular Daily Inspiration - Daily Quote free email.>
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