Every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods.
H. L. MENCKENEquality 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.
More H. L. Mencken Quotes
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The one permanent emotion of the inferior man is fear – fear of the unknown, the complex, the inexplicable. What he wants above everything else is safety.
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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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There is no idea so stupid that you can’t find a professor who will believe it.
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On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.
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Freedom of press is limited to those who own one.
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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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Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.
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Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.
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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.
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Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under.
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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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The State doesn’t just want you to obey, it wants to make you WANT to obey.
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The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out for himself.
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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 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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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.
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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.
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The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
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A man may be a fool and not know it, but not if he is married.
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Sometimes the idiots outvote the sensible people.
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There are two kinds of Europeans: The smart ones, and those who stayed behind.
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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.
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What men value in this world is not rights but privileges.
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Love is like war: easy to begin but very hard to stop.
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The American people, North and South, went into the [Civil] war as citizens of their respective states, they came out as subjects … what they thus lost they have never got back.
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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.
H. L. MENCKEN