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. MENCKENThe chief difference between free capitalism and State socialism seems to be this: that under the former a man pursues his own advantage openly, frankly and honestly, whereas under the latter he does so hypocritically and under false pretenses.
More H. L. Mencken Quotes
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The State doesn’t just want you to obey, it wants to make you WANT to obey.
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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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If a politician found he had cannibals among his constituents, he would promise them missionaries for dinner.
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Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under.
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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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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.
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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.
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The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out for himself.
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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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In this world of sin and sorrow there is always something to be thankful for; as for me, I rejoice that I am not a Republican.
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Sometimes the idiots outvote the sensible people.
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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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Government’s great contribution to human wisdom is the discovery that the taxpayer has more than one pocket.
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A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin.
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There are two kinds of Europeans: The smart ones, and those who stayed behind.
H. L. MENCKEN