Freedom of press is limited to those who own one.
H. L. MENCKENFree speech is too dangerous to a democracy to be permitted.
More H. L. Mencken Quotes
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There’s really no point to voting. If it made any difference, it would probably be illegal.
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There is no idea so stupid that you can’t find a professor who will believe it.
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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.
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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.
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The final test of truth is ridicule. Very few dogmas have ever faced it and survived.
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Evangelical Christianity, as everyone knows, is founded upon hate, as the Christianity of Christ was founded upon love.
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Imagine the Creator as a low comedian, and at once the world becomes explicable.
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An idealist is one who, on noticing that roses smell better than a cabbage, concludes that it will also make better soup.
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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.
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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.
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There are two kinds of Europeans: The smart ones, and those who stayed behind.
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Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.
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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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A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin.
H. L. MENCKEN