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The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one’s time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.

H. L. Mencken

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.
H. L. MENCKEN

Citizenship Education Learning Liberty Possible Reality Simplicity
After all is said and done, a hell lot of a lot more is said than done.
H. L. MENCKEN

Action Hell Talk
It is inaccurate to say that I hate everything. I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty, and common decency. This makes me forever ineligible for public office.
H. L. MENCKEN

Forever Freedom Hate Honesty Myself Strong
Imagine the Creator as a low comedian, and at once the world becomes explicable.
H. L. MENCKEN

Democracy Freedom Imagination World
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.
H. L. MENCKEN

Fight Government People Wrong
The best teacher is not the one who knows most but the one who is most capable of reducing knowledge to that simple compound of the obvious and wonderful.
H. L. MENCKEN

Education Knowledge Simplicity Teaching Wonderful
A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin.
H. L. MENCKEN

Death Flower Funny Humor
The kind of man who demands that government enforce his ideas is always the kind whose ideas are idiotic.
H. L. MENCKEN

Freedom Government Ideas Kind Men
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.
H. L. MENCKEN

Children Failure God Man Success Theory
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.
H. L. MENCKEN

Freedom Gratitude Myself Thankful World
There’s really no point to voting. If it made any difference, it would probably be illegal.
H. L. MENCKEN

Democracy Difference Vote
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.
H. L. MENCKEN

Himself Ideas Man Thinking True
Once a woman passes a certain point in intelligence she finds it almost impossible to get a husband: she simply cannot go on listening without snickering.
H. L. MENCKEN

Heart Husband Intelligence Listening Men Simplicity Woman
Socialist: A man suffering from an overwhelming conviction to believe what is not true.
H. L. MENCKEN

Believe Men Suffering True
Equality before the law is probably forever unattainable. It is a noble ideal, but it can never be realized, for what men value in this world is not rights but privileges.
H. L. MENCKEN

Equality Forever Ideal Law Men Priviledge Right World
A church is a place in which gentlemen who have never been to Heaven brag about it to persons who will never get there.
H. L. MENCKEN

Funny Heaven Humor Person Place

The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one’s time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.

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The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one’s time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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