A Quote by H. L. Mencken

Confidence: The feeling that makes one believe a man, even when one knows that one would lie in his place — © H. L. Mencken
Confidence: The feeling that makes one believe a man, even when one knows that one would lie in his place
It is hard to believe that a man is telling the truth when you know that you would lie if you were in his place.
By a lie a man throws away and, as it were, annihilates his dignity as a man. A man who himself does not believe what he tells another ... has even less worth than if he were a mere thing. ... makes himself a mere deceptive appearance of man, not man himself.
Somehow, I can't believe that there are any heights that can't be scaled by a man by a man who knows the secret of making dreams come true. The special secret it seems to me is summarized in four C's. They are Curiosity, Courage, Confidence and Constancy. And the greatest of all is Confidence. When you believe in a thing, believe in it all the way, implicitly and unquestionably.
Klopp knows how to motivate players. He speaks to them individually, gets their confidence up, makes them believe and grow in quality. He makes his players feel happy. And they then take that happiness onto the field. He builds that into them.
When a man's life is over, it remains true that he was one sort of man and not another. A man who understands himself under the form of eternity knows the quality that eternally belongs to him, and knows that he cannot wholly die, even if he would, for when the movement of his life is over, the truth of his life remains.
Security is not a static thing. Security would only lie in a man's confidence in reaching his goals and, indeed, in his having goals to reach.
No man ever quite believes in any other man. One may believe in an idea absolutely, but not in a man. In the highest confidence there is always a flavor of doubt--a feeling, half instinctive and half logical, that, after all, the scoundrel may have something up his sleeve.
The president is on national TV apologizing for getting oral sex. Why didn't he just stick with his lie? You got to stick with your lie. If you lie, you have to believe that lie whole-heartedly. It has to become the truth for you. But this man, the most powerful man in the world, is on national TV apologizing for receiving oral sex. He's an idiot. There are men sitting in here right now who would gladly accept oral sex on national TV.
A man's bookseller should keep his confidence, like his physician. What can become of a world where every man knows what another man reads? Why, sir, books would become like quacks' potions, with every mountebank in the newspapers claiming one volume's superiority over another.
Any man shall speak the better when he knows what others have said, and sometimes the consciousness of his inward knowledge gives a confidence to his outward behavior, which of all other is the best thing to grace a man in his carriage.
Either [Jesus] was what he said he was or he was the world's greatest liar. It is impossible for me to believe a liar or charlatan could have had the effect on mankind that he has had for 2000 years. We could ask, would even the greatest of liars carry his lie through the crucifixion, when a simple confession would have saved him? ... Did he allow us the choice... to believe in his teaching but reject his statements about his own identity?
But what a feeling can come over a man just from seeing the things he believes in and hopes for symbolized in the concrete form of a man. In something that gives a focus to all the other things he knows to be real. Something that makes unseen things manifest and allows him to come to his hopes and dreams through his outer eye and through the touch and feel of his natural hand.
What harm would it do, if a man told a good strong lie for the sake of the good and for the Christian church ... a lie out of necessity, a useful lie, a helpful lie, such lies would not be against God, he would accept them.
There are four types of men in this world: 1. The man who knows, and knows that he knows; he is wise, so consult him. 2. The man who knows, but doesn't know that he knows; help him not forget what he knows. 3. The man who knows not, and knows that he knows not; teach him. 4. Finally, there is the man who knows not but pretends that he knows; he is a fool, so avoid him.
10 years ago the black man knew what his condition was. And today, because of the world revolution that's taking place all over this earth, the black man would be fighting for what he knows is his by right, but the movement on the part of [Martin Luther] King and the others had done nothing but slow down the militancy that is inherent in the nature of the black man.
... a warrior knows that he cannot change, and yet he makes it his business to try to change, even though he knows that he won't be able to. That's the only advantage a warrior has over the average man. The warrior is never disappointed when he fails to change.
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