Laws are no longer made by a rational process of public discussion; they are made by a process of blackmail and intimidation, and they are executed in the same manner
H. L. MENCKENThe men the American people admire most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest most violently are those who try to tell them the truth.
More H. L. Mencken Quotes
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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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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 -
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.
H. L. MENCKEN -
Free speech is too dangerous to a democracy to be permitted.
H. L. MENCKEN -
A church is a place in which gentlemen who have never been to Heaven brag about it to persons who will never get there.
H. L. MENCKEN -
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 -
There are two kinds of Europeans: The smart ones, and those who stayed behind.
H. L. MENCKEN -
The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.
H. L. MENCKEN -
When somebody says it’s not about the money, it’s about the money.
H. L. MENCKEN -
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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Freedom of press is limited to those who own one.
H. L. MENCKEN -
Sometimes the idiots outvote the sensible people.
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Every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods.
H. L. MENCKEN -
Socialist: A man suffering from an overwhelming conviction to believe what is not true.
H. L. MENCKEN -
Democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey cage.
H. L. MENCKEN