black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

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

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

Funny Heaven Humor Person Place
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 final test of truth is ridicule. Very few dogmas have ever faced it and survived.
H. L. MENCKEN

Face Survive Truth
The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.
H. L. MENCKEN

Freedom Humanity Peace Rule Save War
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
What men value in this world is not rights but privileges.
H. L. MENCKEN

Leadership Men Priviledge Right Value
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
Every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods.
H. L. MENCKEN

Election Liberty Material Politics
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
Free speech is too dangerous to a democracy to be permitted.
H. L. MENCKEN

Danger Democracy Freedom Scare
When somebody says it’s not about the money, it’s about the money.
H. L. MENCKEN

Deep Money
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.
H. L. MENCKEN

Courage Emotion Fear Himself Men Safety
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.
H. L. MENCKEN

Desire Funny Glory Greatness Heart
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
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.
H. L. MENCKEN

Democracy Freedom Right Rule Success War

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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More H. L. Mencken Quotes