Change is not progress.
H. L. MENCKENThe only thing wrong with Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address was that it was the South, not the North, that was fighting for a government of the people, by the people and for the people.
More H. L. Mencken Quotes
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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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A man may be a fool and not know it, but not if he is married.
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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.
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Don’t overestimate the decency of the human race.
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A judge is a law student who marks his own examination papers.
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The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.
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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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You can’t do anything about the length of your life, but you can do something about its width and depth.
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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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Puritanism. The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.
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Freedom of press is limited to those who own one.
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All government, in its essence, is a conspiracy against the superior man: its one permanent object is to oppress him and cripple him.
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Every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods.
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The average man does not get pleasure out of an idea because he thinks it is true; he thinks it is true because he gets pleasure out of it.
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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






