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It is even harder for the average ape to believe that he has descended from man.

H. L. Mencken

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
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
Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.
H. L. MENCKEN

Anger Black Funny Hands Time
When fanatics are on top there is no limit to oppression.
H. L. MENCKEN

Limitation Oppression Power War
If a politician found he had cannibals among his constituents, he would promise them missionaries for dinner.
H. L. MENCKEN

Food Politics Promise
A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin.
H. L. MENCKEN

Death Flower Funny Humor
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
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. MENCKEN

Government Himself Men Oppression
Socialist: A man suffering from an overwhelming conviction to believe what is not true.
H. L. MENCKEN

Believe Men Suffering True
The ideal way to get rid of any infectious disease would be to shoot instantly every person who comes down with it.
H. L. MENCKEN

Death Freedom Ideal Kill Sick
No professional politician is ever actually in favor of public economy. It is his implacable enemy, and he knows it. All professional politicians are dedicated wholeheartedly to waste and corruption. They are the enemies of every decent man.
H. L. MENCKEN

Corruption Dedication Enemy Himself Man Politics Professional Waste
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.
H. L. MENCKEN

Democracy End Freedom Government Imagination Policy Practice Safety
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
Sometimes the idiots outvote the sensible people.
H. L. MENCKEN

Democracy People Vote
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
What men value in this world is not rights but privileges.
H. L. MENCKEN

Leadership Men Priviledge Right Value

It is even harder for the average ape to believe that he has descended from man.

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It is even harder for the average ape to believe that he has descended from man.

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