Democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey cage.
H. L. MENCKENA 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.
More H. L. Mencken Quotes
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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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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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The best teacher is not the one who knows most but the one who is most capable of reducing knowledge to that simple compound of the obvious and wonderful.
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A judge is a law student who marks his own examination papers.
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Always remember this: If you don’t attend the funerals of your friends, they will certainly not attend yours.
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It doesn’t take a majority to make a rebellion; it takes only a few determined leaders and a sound cause.
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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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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?
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A man may be a fool and not know it, but not if he is married.
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There are two kinds of Europeans: The smart ones, and those who stayed behind.
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When somebody says it’s not about the money, it’s about the money.
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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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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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On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.
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The 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.
H. L. MENCKEN