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The 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.

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.
H. L. MENCKEN

Beginning Fight Freedom Human Law Oppression Stop Time
Imagine the Creator as a low comedian, and at once the world becomes explicable.
H. L. MENCKEN

Democracy Freedom Imagination World
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
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
It is even harder for the average ape to believe that he has descended from man.
H. L. MENCKEN

Believe Funny Hard Man Transformation
The kind of man who demands that government enforce his ideas is always the kind whose ideas are idiotic.
H. L. MENCKEN

Freedom Government Ideas Kind Men
The only good bureaucrat is one with a pistol at his head. Put it in his hand and it’s good-bye to the Bill of Rights.
H. L. MENCKEN

Democracy Goodness Hands Right
Evangelical Christianity, as everyone knows, is founded upon hate, as the Christianity of Christ was founded upon love.
H. L. MENCKEN

Build Hate Love Religion
Freedom of press is limited to those who own one.
H. L. MENCKEN

Freedom Funny Limitation Oneself Politics
Democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey cage.
H. L. MENCKEN

Animal Art Democracy Science
What men value in this world is not rights but privileges.
H. L. MENCKEN

Leadership Men Priviledge Right Value
Journalism is to politician as dog is to lamp-post.
H. L. MENCKEN

Career Dog Journalism Politics
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

Children Failure God Man Success Theory
Free speech is too dangerous to a democracy to be permitted.
H. L. MENCKEN

Danger Democracy Freedom Scare
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.
H. L. MENCKEN

Democracy End Freedom Government Imagination Policy Practice Safety
A sense of humor always withers in the presence of the messianic delusion, like justice and the truth in front of patriotic passion.
H. L. MENCKEN

Humor Justice Passion Patriot Presence

The 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.

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The 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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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