Most people want security in this world, not liberty.
H. L. MENCKENDemocracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey cage.
More H. L. Mencken Quotes
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A judge is a law student who marks his own examination papers.
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After all is said and done, a hell lot of a lot more is said than done.
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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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It is even harder for the average ape to believe that he has descended from man.
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What men value in this world is not rights but privileges.
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Free speech is too dangerous to a democracy to be permitted.
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Imagine the Creator as a low comedian, and at once the world becomes explicable.
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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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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.
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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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The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.
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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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Sometimes the idiots outvote the sensible people.
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Every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods.
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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.
H. L. MENCKEN