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. MENCKENThe kind of man who demands that government enforce his ideas is always the kind whose ideas are idiotic.
More H. L. Mencken Quotes
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On one issue, at least, men and women agree. They both distrust women.
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Always remember this: If you don’t attend the funerals of your friends, they will certainly not attend yours.
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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 urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.
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When somebody says it’s not about the money, it’s about the money.
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There are two impossibilities in life: “just one drink” and “an honest politician.”
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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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Once a woman passes a certain point in intelligence she finds it almost impossible to get a husband: she simply cannot go on listening without snickering.
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When fanatics are on top there is no limit to oppression.
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Socialist: A man suffering from an overwhelming conviction to believe what is not true.
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If a politician found he had cannibals among his constituents, he would promise them missionaries for dinner.
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In this world of sin and sorrow there is always something to be thankful for; as for me, I rejoice that I am not a Republican.
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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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Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.
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The demagogue is one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots.
H. L. MENCKEN