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All successful newspapers are ceaselessly querulous and bellicose. They never defend anyone or anything if they can help it; if the job is forced on them, they tackle it by denouncing someone or something else.

— H. L. Mencken Prejudices, First Series (1919)

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More quotes by H. L. Mencken

It is the dull man who is always sure, and the sure man who is always dull.

The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out for himself, without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos.

Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.

Smart Set (1910)

Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable.

Prejudices, Third Series (1922)

The fact is that the average man's love of liberty is nine-tenths imaginary, exactly like his love of sense, justice and truth.

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: H. L. Mencken (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.