You can’t do anything about the length of your life, but you can do something about its width and depth.
H. L. MENCKENEvery normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.
More H. L. Mencken Quotes
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The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.
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All government, in its essence, is a conspiracy against the superior man: its one permanent object is to oppress him and cripple him.
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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.
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There are two impossibilities in life: “just one drink” and “an honest politician.”
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A church is a place in which gentlemen who have never been to Heaven brag about it to persons who will never get there.
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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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An idealist is one who, on noticing that roses smell better than a cabbage, concludes that it will also make better soup.
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There’s really no point to voting. If it made any difference, it would probably be illegal.
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Socialist: A man suffering from an overwhelming conviction to believe what is not true.
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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.
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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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When somebody says it’s not about the money, it’s about the money.
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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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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.
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Government’s great contribution to human wisdom is the discovery that the taxpayer has more than one pocket.
H. L. MENCKEN