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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.

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

Freedom Honor Men Order Politics
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
No one in this world, so far as I know – and I have searched the records for years, and employed agents to help me – has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people.
H. L. MENCKEN

Greatness Help Intelligence Lost Money Oneself People Search World
Misogynist: A man who hates women as much as women hate one another.
H. L. MENCKEN

Feminism Hate Man Women
After all is said and done, a hell lot of a lot more is said than done.
H. L. MENCKEN

Action Hell Talk
The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out for himself.
H. L. MENCKEN

Danger Government Himself Men Thinking
Most people want security in this world, not liberty.
H. L. MENCKEN

Deep Freedom Liberty People Security
A sense of humor always withers in the presence of the messianic delusion, like justice and the truth in front of patriotic passion.
H. L. MENCKEN

Humor Justice Passion Patriot Presence
The State doesn’t just want you to obey, it wants to make you WANT to obey.
H. L. MENCKEN

Government Politics Yourself
Always remember this: If you don’t attend the funerals of your friends, they will certainly not attend yours.
H. L. MENCKEN

Age Friendship Remember Yourself
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 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.
H. L. MENCKEN

Democracy Goodness Hands Right
For every problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
H. L. MENCKEN

Choice Moral Philosophy Problem Simplicity Wrong
Journalism is to politician as dog is to lamp-post.
H. L. MENCKEN

Career Dog Journalism Politics
Laws are no longer made by a rational process of public discussion; they are made by a process of blackmail and intimidation, and they are executed in the same manner
H. L. MENCKEN

Death Fear Law Process Talk
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?
H. L. MENCKEN

Cheating Expectation Government Honesty Humanity Lying Need People Resistance

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 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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