All government, in its essence, is a conspiracy against the superior man: its one permanent object is to oppress him and cripple him.
H. L. MENCKENA 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.
More H. L. Mencken Quotes
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The chief difference between free capitalism and State socialism seems to be this: that under the former a man pursues his own advantage openly, frankly and honestly, whereas under the latter he does so hypocritically and under false pretenses.
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The central belief of every moron is that he is the victim of a mysterious conspiracy against his common rights and true deserts.
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The final test of truth is ridicule. Very few dogmas have ever faced it and survived.
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The only good bureaucrat is one with a pistol at his head. Put it in his hand and it’s good-bye to the Bill of Rights.
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Don’t overestimate the decency of the human race.
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There are two kinds of Europeans: The smart ones, and those who stayed behind.
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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 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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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.
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The men the American people admire most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest most violently are those who try to tell them the truth.
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Journalism is to politician as dog is to lamp-post.
H. L. MENCKEN -
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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There are two impossibilities in life: “just one drink” and “an honest politician.”
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It is the classic fallacy of our time that a moron run through a university and decorated with a Ph.D. will thereby cease to be a moron.
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.
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When fanatics are on top there is no limit to oppression.
H. L. MENCKEN -
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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Misogynist: A man who hates women as much as women hate one another.
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It doesn’t take a majority to make a rebellion; it takes only a few determined leaders and a sound cause.
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Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under.
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Sometimes the idiots outvote the sensible people.
H. L. MENCKEN -
If a politician found he had cannibals among his constituents, he would promise them missionaries for dinner.
H. L. MENCKEN -
Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.
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Love is like war: easy to begin but very hard to stop.
H. L. MENCKEN -
Imagine the Creator as a low comedian, and at once the world becomes explicable.
H. L. MENCKEN -
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.
H. L. MENCKEN