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. MENCKENOnce a woman passes a certain point in intelligence she finds it almost impossible to get a husband: she simply cannot go on listening without snickering.
More H. L. Mencken Quotes
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The 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.
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What men value in this world is not rights but privileges.
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The demagogue is one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots.
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Morality is doing what is right, no matter what you are told. Religion is doing what you are told, no matter what is right.
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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.
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The men the American people admire most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest most violently are those who try to tell them the truth.
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For every problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
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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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A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin.
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Most people want security in this world, not liberty.
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On one issue, at least, men and women agree. They both distrust women.
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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 -
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 State doesn’t just want you to obey, it wants to make you WANT to obey.
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Journalism is to politician as dog is to lamp-post.
H. L. MENCKEN