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Puritanism. The haunting fear that
someone, somewhere, may be happy.
- H. L. Mencken
Related topics: Cynical Religion
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
Legend: A lie that has attained the dignity of age.
- H. L. Mencken
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Thank You,
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
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 like war: easy to begin but very hard to stop.
- H. L. Mencken
Love is the delusion that one woman differs from another.
- 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
Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief
in the occurrence of the improbable.
- H. L. Mencken
For every complex problem,
there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
- H.L. Mencken
A good politician is quite as unthinkable as an honest burglar.
- H. L. Mencken
Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence.
- H. L. Mencken
The urge to save humanity is almost always
a false front for the urge to rule.
- H. L. Mencken
Life is a constant oscillation
between the sharp horns of dilemmas.
- H. L. Mencken
Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public.
- H. L. Mencken
Criticism is prejudice made plausible.
- H. L. Mencken
The believing mind is eternally impervious to evidence.
- H. L. Mencken
For centuries, theologians have been explaining
the unknowable in terms of the-not-worth-knowing.
- H. L. Mencken
Conscience is a mother-in-law whose visit never ends.
- H. L. Mencken
Marriage is a wonderful institution,
but who would want to live in an institution?
- H. L. Mencken
Happiness is the china shop; love is the bull.
- H. L. Mencken
A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers,
looks around for a coffin.
- 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 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
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
Tell your heart that the fear of suffering
is worse than the suffering itself.
- Paulo Coelho
The greatest mistake you can make in life
is to be continually fearing you will make one.
- Elbert Hubbard
Know that the greatest fear is fear of the unknown.
Seek to meet the unknown with courage and a sense of adventure.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our Light, not our Darkness, that most frightens us.
- Marianne Williamson
Choose what lies in the shadows to be a matter
for discovery and adventure, rather than fear.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
The wise man in the storm prays God,
not for safety from danger,
but for deliverance from fear.
It is the storm within which endangers him,
not the storm without.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.
- Joseph Campbell
You can conquer almost any fear
if you will only make up your mind to do so.
For remember, fear doesn't exist
anywhere except in the mind.
- Dale Carnegie
Where fear is, happiness is not.
- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
Fear defeats more people than
any other one thing in the world.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Never let the fear of striking out get in your way.
- Babe Ruth
The fear of death follows from the fear of life.
A man who lives fully, is prepared to die at any time.
- Mark Twain
The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy
is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quiet,
alone with the heavens, nature and God.
Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be.
- Anne Frank
The way to develop self-confidence
is to do the thing you fear
and get a record of successful experiences behind you.
- William Jennings Bryan
If you look into your own heart,
and you find nothing wrong there,
what is there to worry about?
What is there to fear?
- Confucius
Your worst enemy cannot harm you as much as
your own unguarded thoughts.
- The Buddha
The River of Life has no meaning,
no good, no bad, no better, no worse,
no love, no hate, no fear, no anger, no joy.
The River of Life has no judgment, no expectation.
The River of Life just IS.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Poverty with security is better than plenty
in the midst of fear and uncertainty.
- Aesop
Worry never robs tomorrow of its sorrow,
it only saps today of its joy.
- Leo Buscaglia
A life lived in fear is a life half lived.
- Anonymous
I Receive ALL of Life with Thanksgiving -
I have gratitude for EVERYTHING
that has ever occurred to bring me to this moment.
I give thanks for the joys and the sufferings,
the moments of peace and the flashes of anger,
the compassion and the indifference,
the roar of my courage and the cold sweat of my fear.
I accept gratefully the entirety of my past and my present life.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
The best way to gain self-confidence
is to do what you are afraid to do.
- Anonymous
Today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday.
- Anonymous
Through violence, you may 'solve' one problem,
but you sow the seeds for another.
- Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama
What if it were only an illusion?
Perhaps life is not as threatening as it appears.
Perhaps the greatest threat to our serenity
is our fear of the future -
our fear of the unknown.
Perhaps, as Franklin D. Roosevelt said,
"The Only Thing We Have to Fear Is Fear Itself."
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Misunderstanding arising from ignorance breeds fear,
and fear remains the greatest enemy of peace.
- Lester B. Pearson
Our actions are constrained by fear of reprisal,
but our dreams reveal our true character.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
The inherent nature of life is constant change.
To fear change is to fear life itself.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Not everything that casts a long shadow is to be feared.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
If I feel depressed I will sing.
If I feel sad I will laugh.
If I feel ill I will double my labor.
If I feel fear I will plunge ahead.
If I feel inferior I will wear new garments.
If I feel uncertain I will raise my voice.
If I feel poverty I will think of wealth to come.
If I feel incompetent I will think of past success.
If I feel insignificant I will remember my goals.
Today I will be the master of my emotions.
- Og Mandino
We have to let go of all blame, all attacking, all judging,
to free our inner selves to attract what we say we want.
- Joe Vitale
Fear cannot be banished, but it can be calm and without panic;
it can be mitigated by reason and evaluation.
- Vannevar Bush
Never be stopped by fear or self-pity.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
I gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience
in which I must stop and look fear in the face.
I say to myself, I've lived through this
and can take the next thing that comes along.
- Eleanor Roosevelt
In this world there is always danger
for those who are afraid of it.
- George Bernard Shaw
We must build dikes of courage
to hold back the flood of fear.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
Faith is trusting in the good.
Fear is putting your trust in the bad.
- Rhonda Byrne
It is idle to dread what you cannot avoid.
- Publilius Syrus
Where there is charity and wisdom,
there is neither fear nor ignorance.
- St. Francis of Assisi
Fear is the cheapest room in the house.
I would like to see you living
In better conditions.
- Hafiz
Know that love conquers fear.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Feel the fear and do it anyway.
- Susan Jeffers
A mentality of scarcity - of lack -
is the natural consequence of
viewing the world through eyes of fear.
In contrast, when the world is viewed
through eyes of love,
the future becomes unlimited.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Neither a man nor a crowd nor a nation
can be trusted to act humanely
or to think sanely under the influence of a great fear.
- Bertrand Russell
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May the world be kind to you,
and may your own thoughts be gentle upon yourself.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
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