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Socialist: A man suffering from an overwhelming conviction to believe what is not true.

H. L. Mencken

When fanatics are on top there is no limit to oppression.
H. L. MENCKEN

Limitation Oppression Power War
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
Change is not progress.
H. L. MENCKEN

Change Difference One Liner Progress
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
The final test of truth is ridicule. Very few dogmas have ever faced it and survived.
H. L. MENCKEN

Face Survive Truth
Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.
H. L. MENCKEN

Belief Freedom Ignorance Rule Wisdom
Love is like war: easy to begin but very hard to stop.
H. L. MENCKEN

Easy Hard Love Relationship Stop War
Most people want security in this world, not liberty.
H. L. MENCKEN

Deep Freedom Liberty People Security
Government’s great contribution to human wisdom is the discovery that the taxpayer has more than one pocket.
H. L. MENCKEN

Discovery Government Human Liberty Wisdom
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
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
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

Education Knowledge Simplicity Teaching Wonderful
A man may be a fool and not know it, but not if he is married.
H. L. MENCKEN

Fools Funny Himself Man Marriage
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.
H. L. MENCKEN

Equality Forever Ideal Law Men Priviledge Right World
Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.
H. L. MENCKEN

Democracy Deserve Freedom People Theory
If a politician found he had cannibals among his constituents, he would promise them missionaries for dinner.
H. L. MENCKEN

Food Politics Promise
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
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
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
Every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods.
H. L. MENCKEN

Election Liberty Material Politics
Freedom of press is limited to those who own one.
H. L. MENCKEN

Freedom Funny Limitation Oneself Politics
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.
H. L. MENCKEN

Heart Husband Intelligence Listening Men Simplicity Woman
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.
H. L. MENCKEN

Beginning Fight Freedom Human Law Oppression Stop Time
The demagogue is one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots.
H. L. MENCKEN

Himself Men Oneself
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
You can’t do anything about the length of your life, but you can do something about its width and depth.
H. L. MENCKEN

Deep Inspirational Life Philosophy Worth Yourself
Democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey cage.
H. L. MENCKEN

Animal Art Democracy Science

Socialist: A man suffering from an overwhelming conviction to believe what is not true.

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Socialist: A man suffering from an overwhelming conviction to believe what is not true.

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