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The State doesn’t just want you to obey, it wants to make you WANT to obey.

H. L. Mencken

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.
H. L. MENCKEN

Greatness Help Intelligence Lost Money Oneself People Search World
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.
H. L. MENCKEN

Differences Freedom Honesty Hypocrisy Men Pursue
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.
H. L. MENCKEN

Courage Emotion Fear Himself Men Safety
When somebody says it’s not about the money, it’s about the money.
H. L. MENCKEN

Deep Money
There are two kinds of Europeans: The smart ones, and those who stayed behind.
H. L. MENCKEN

Difference Kind Smart Stay
Evangelical Christianity, as everyone knows, is founded upon hate, as the Christianity of Christ was founded upon love.
H. L. MENCKEN

Build Hate Love Religion
What men value in this world is not rights but privileges.
H. L. MENCKEN

Leadership Men Priviledge Right Value
Love is like war: easy to begin but very hard to stop.
H. L. MENCKEN

Easy Hard Love Relationship Stop War
A sense of humor always withers in the presence of the messianic delusion, like justice and the truth in front of patriotic passion.
H. L. MENCKEN

Humor Justice Passion Patriot Presence
Don’t overestimate the decency of the human race.
H. L. MENCKEN

Dignity Human Race
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.
H. L. MENCKEN

Democracy End Freedom Government Imagination Policy Practice Safety
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?
H. L. MENCKEN

Cheating Expectation Government Honesty Humanity Lying Need People Resistance
There are two impossibilities in life: “just one drink” and “an honest politician.”
H. L. MENCKEN

Honesty Impossible Life Politics
When fanatics are on top there is no limit to oppression.
H. L. MENCKEN

Limitation Oppression Power War
Government’s great contribution to human wisdom is the discovery that the taxpayer has more than one pocket.
H. L. MENCKEN

Discovery Government Human Liberty Wisdom
For every problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
H. L. MENCKEN

Choice Moral Philosophy Problem Simplicity Wrong

The State doesn’t just want you to obey, it wants to make you WANT to obey.

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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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