This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken
Before a man speaks it is always safe to assume that he is a fool. After he speaks, it is seldom necessary to assume it.
The principal thing in this world is to keep one's soul aloft.
H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken
A Sunday school is a prison in which children do penance for the evil conscience of their parents.
The finest works of art are those in which there is the least matter. The closer expression comes to thought, the more the word clings to the idea and disappears, the more beautiful the work of art.
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There is no truth except in its relation, that is to say, the fashion in which we perceive the objects.
H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken
In any combat between a rogue and a fool the sympathy of mankind is always with the rogue.
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H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken
Morality and honor are not to be confused. The difference between a moral man and a man of honor is that the latter regrets a discreditable act, even when it has worked and he has not been caught.
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H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken
The woman who is not pursued sets up the doctrine that pursuit is offensive to her sex, and wants to make it a felony. No genuinely attractive woman has any such desire. She likes masculine admiration, however violently expressed, and is quite able to take care of herself. More, she is well aware that very few men are bold enough to offer it without a plain invitation, and this awareness makes her extremely cynical of all women who complain of being harassed, beset, storied, and seduced. All the more intelligent women that I know, indeed, are unanimously of the opinion that no girl in her right senses has ever been actually seduced since the world began;
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For politics is not like the nursery; in politics obedience and Support are the same.
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H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken
The average newspaper, especially of the better sort, has the intelligence of a hillbilly evangelist, the courage of a rat, the fairness of a prohibitionist boob-jumper, the information of a high school janitor, the taste of a designer of celluloid valentines, and the honor of a police-station lawyer.
Creation is dominated by three absolutely different factors: First, nature, which works upon us by its laws; second, the artist, who creates a spiritual contact with nature and his materials; third, the medium of expression through which the artist translates his inner world. Of those three components only one, the medium, is material.
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It is the greatest injustice done to Mondrian that people who are plastically blind see only decorative design instead of the plastic perfection which characterizes his work. The whole De Stijl group from which Mondrian's art was derived must be considered a protest against such blindness.
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I meet so many that think population growth is a major problem in regard to climate change. But the number of children born per year in the world has stopped growing since 1990. The total number of children below 15 years of age in the world are now relatively stable around 2 billion.
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You have to fit in sometimes to make people comfortable to listen to you.
Basically I hate categorical labels. As a young artist I already was very clear about this ? that "objectification" is not the final aim of art. For there are greater things than the object. The greatest thing is the human mind.
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The eye of the master fattens the horse.
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Much smoke, and little roast.
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