Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule—and both commonly succeed, and are right.
H. L. MENCKENThe 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.
More H. L. Mencken Quotes
-
-
After all is said and done, a hell lot of a lot more is said than done.
H. L. MENCKEN -
It is even harder for the average ape to believe that he has descended from man.
H. L. MENCKEN -
Change is not progress.
H. L. MENCKEN -
It doesn’t take a majority to make a rebellion; it takes only a few determined leaders and a sound cause.
H. L. MENCKEN -
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.
H. L. MENCKEN -
Sometimes the idiots outvote the sensible people.
H. L. MENCKEN -
The common argument that crime is caused by poverty is a kind of slander on the poor.
H. L. MENCKEN -
Every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods.
H. L. MENCKEN -
Socialist: A man suffering from an overwhelming conviction to believe what is not true.
H. L. MENCKEN -
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 -
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 -
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 -
There are two impossibilities in life: “just one drink” and “an honest politician.”
H. L. MENCKEN -
When somebody says it’s not about the money, it’s about the money.
H. L. MENCKEN -
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.
H. L. MENCKEN