The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out for himself.
H. L. MENCKENThe demagogue is one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots.
More H. L. Mencken Quotes
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There is no idea so stupid that you can’t find a professor who will believe it.
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Free speech is too dangerous to a democracy to be permitted.
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Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule—and both commonly succeed, and are right.
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Every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods.
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You can’t do anything about the length of your life, but you can do something about its width and depth.
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There’s really no point to voting. If it made any difference, it would probably be illegal.
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Government’s great contribution to human wisdom is the discovery that the taxpayer has more than one pocket.
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The common argument that crime is caused by poverty is a kind of slander on the poor.
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The ideal way to get rid of any infectious disease would be to shoot instantly every person who comes down with it.
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After all is said and done, a hell lot of a lot more is said than done.
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A judge is a law student who marks his own examination papers.
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The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all; it is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed a standard citizenry, to put down dissent and originality.
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People do not expect to find chastity in a whorehouse. Why, then, do they expect to find honesty and humanity in government, a congeries of institutions whose modus operandi consists of lying, cheating, stealing, and if need be, murdering those who resist?
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There are two impossibilities in life: “just one drink” and “an honest politician.”
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The average man does not get pleasure out of an idea because he thinks it is true; he thinks it is true because he gets pleasure out of it.
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Misogynist: A man who hates women as much as women hate one another.
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Puritanism. The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.
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Democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey cage.
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A professional politician is a professionally dishonorable man. In order to get anywhere near high office he has to make so many compromises and submit to so many humiliations that he becomes indistinguishable from a streetwalker.
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When somebody says it’s not about the money, it’s about the money.
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Don’t overestimate the decency of the human race.
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In this world of sin and sorrow there is always something to be thankful for; as for me, I rejoice that I am not a Republican.
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There are two kinds of Europeans: The smart ones, and those who stayed behind.
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Freedom of press is limited to those who own one.
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If a politician found he had cannibals among his constituents, he would promise them missionaries for dinner.
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What men value in this world is not rights but privileges.
H. L. MENCKEN