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A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin.

H. L. Mencken

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
The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all; it is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed a standard citizenry, to put down dissent and originality.
H. L. MENCKEN

Citizenship Education Learning Liberty Possible Reality Simplicity
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 American people, North and South, went into the [Civil] war as citizens of their respective states, they came out as subjects … what they thus lost they have never got back.
H. L. MENCKEN

Citizenship Liberty Lost People 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
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.
H. L. MENCKEN

Education Ourselves Run Time
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

Forever Freedom Hate Honesty Myself Strong
Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under.
H. L. MENCKEN

Freedom Government Integrity Live Men Shame
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
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
No 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.
H. L. MENCKEN

Corruption Dedication Enemy Himself Man Politics Professional Waste
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
Most people want security in this world, not liberty.
H. L. MENCKEN

Deep Freedom Liberty People Security
Sometimes the idiots outvote the sensible people.
H. L. MENCKEN

Democracy People Vote
Puritanism. The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.
H. L. MENCKEN

Fear God Happiness
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

A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin.

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A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin.

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