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.
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.
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.
The American people, North and South, went into the [Civil] war as citizens of their respective states, they came out as subjects … what they thus lost they have never got back.
![H. L. Mencken Quote - The American people, North and South, went into the [Civil] war as citizens of their respective states, they came out as subjects … what they thus lost they have never got back.](https://minimalistquotes.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/the-american-people-north-and-south-went-into-the--683x1024.jpg)
