Don’t overestimate the decency of the human race.
H. L. MENCKENThe final test of truth is ridicule. Very few dogmas have ever faced it and survived.
More H. L. Mencken Quotes
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Democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey cage.
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A judge is a law student who marks his own examination papers.
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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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Every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods.
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Puritanism. The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.
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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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Socialist: A man suffering from an overwhelming conviction to believe what is not true.
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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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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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All government, in its essence, is a conspiracy against the superior man: its one permanent object is to oppress him and cripple him.
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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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There’s really no point to voting. If it made any difference, it would probably be illegal.
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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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Sometimes the idiots outvote the sensible people.
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A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin.
H. L. MENCKEN