black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

Freedom of press is limited to those who own one.

H. L. Mencken

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
What men value in this world is not rights but privileges.
H. L. MENCKEN

Leadership Men Priviledge Right Value
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
After all is said and done, a hell lot of a lot more is said than done.
H. L. MENCKEN

Action Hell Talk
There’s really no point to voting. If it made any difference, it would probably be illegal.
H. L. MENCKEN

Democracy Difference Vote
Change is not progress.
H. L. MENCKEN

Change Difference One Liner Progress
There are two impossibilities in life: “just one drink” and “an honest politician.”
H. L. MENCKEN

Honesty Impossible Life Politics
Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.
H. L. MENCKEN

Belief Freedom Ignorance Rule Wisdom
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 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
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. MENCKEN

Death Fear Law Process Talk
Don’t overestimate the decency of the human race.
H. L. MENCKEN

Dignity Human Race
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
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
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
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

Freedom of press is limited to those who own one.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

Freedom of press is limited to those who own one.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More H. L. Mencken Quotes