When fanatics are on top there is no limit to oppression.
H. L. MENCKENNo 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.
More H. L. Mencken Quotes
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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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Puritanism. The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.
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A sense of humor always withers in the presence of the messianic delusion, like justice and the truth in front of patriotic passion.
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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 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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Don’t overestimate the decency of the human race.
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It is the classic fallacy of our time that a moron run through a university and decorated with a Ph.D. will thereby cease to be a moron.
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On one issue, at least, men and women agree. They both distrust women.
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A man may be a fool and not know it, but not if he is married.
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The common argument that crime is caused by poverty is a kind of slander on the poor.
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After all is said and done, a hell lot of a lot more is said than done.
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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.
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Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.
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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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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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Freedom of press is limited to those who own one.
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Every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods.
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For every problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
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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 cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin.
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The theory seems to be that as long as a man is a failure he is one of God’s children, but that as soon as he succeeds he is taken over by the Devil.
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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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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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Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under.
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The final test of truth is ridicule. Very few dogmas have ever faced it and survived.
H. L. MENCKEN