The ideal way to get rid of any infectious disease would be to shoot instantly every person who comes down with it.
H. L. MENCKENThe common argument that crime is caused by poverty is a kind of slander on the poor.
More H. L. Mencken Quotes
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The theory seems to be that as long as a man is a failure he is one of God’s children, but that as soon as he succeeds he is taken over by the Devil.
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Don’t overestimate the decency of the human race.
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Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under.
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A church is a place in which gentlemen who have never been to Heaven brag about it to persons who will never get there.
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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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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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Evangelical Christianity, as everyone knows, is founded upon hate, as the Christianity of Christ was founded upon love.
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Journalism is to politician as dog is to lamp-post.
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The State doesn’t just want you to obey, it wants to make you WANT to obey.
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The final test of truth is ridicule. Very few dogmas have ever faced it and survived.
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An idealist is one who, on noticing that roses smell better than a cabbage, concludes that it will also make better soup.
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Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.
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On one issue, at least, men and women agree. They both distrust women.
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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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Every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods.
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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 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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Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.
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A man may be a fool and not know it, but not if he is married.
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No professional politician is ever actually in favor of public economy. It is his implacable enemy, and he knows it. All professional politicians are dedicated wholeheartedly to waste and corruption. They are the enemies of every decent man.
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For every problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
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Morality is doing what is right, no matter what you are told. Religion is doing what you are told, no matter what is right.
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The only thing wrong with Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address was that it was the South, not the North, that was fighting for a government of the people, by the people and for the people.
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The kind of man who demands that government enforce his ideas is always the kind whose ideas are idiotic.
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What men value in this world is not rights but privileges.
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There is no idea so stupid that you can’t find a professor who will believe it.
H. L. MENCKEN