The final test of truth is ridicule. Very few dogmas have e… - H. L. Mencken

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The final test of truth is ridicule. Very few dogmas have ever faced it and survived. Huxley laughed the devils out of the Gadarene swine. Not the laws of the United States but the mother-in-law joke brought the Mormons to surrender. Not the horror of it but the absurdity of it killed the doctrine of infant damnation. But the razor edge of ridicule is turned by the tough hide of truth. How loudly the barber-surgeons laughed at Huxley—and how vainly! What clown ever brought down the house like Galileo? Or Columbus? Or Darwin? . . . They are laughing at Nietzsche yet . . .

H. L. Mencken

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About H. L. Mencken

Henry Louis Mencken (12 September 1880 – 29 January 1956), known as H. L. Mencken, was a twentieth-century journalist, satirist, social critic, cynic, and freethinker, known as the "Sage of Baltimore" and the "American Nietzsche". He is often regarded as one of the most influential American writers of the early 20th century.

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Alternative Names: Henry Louis Mencken

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Additional quotes by H. L. Mencken

Say what you will about the Ten Commandments, you must always come back to the pleasant fact that there are only ten of them.

We are here and it is now. Further than that, all human knowledge is moonshine.

A Puritan is not against bullfighting because of the pain it gives the bull, but because of the pleasure it gives the spectators.

The final test of truth is ridicule. Very few dogmas have ever faced it and survived. Huxley laughed the devils out of the Gadarene swine. Not the la… - H. L. Mencken

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