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

H. L. Mencken

For every problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
H. L. MENCKEN

Choice Moral Philosophy Problem Simplicity Wrong
Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under.
H. L. MENCKEN

Freedom Government Integrity Live Men Shame
It doesn’t take a majority to make a rebellion; it takes only a few determined leaders and a sound cause.
H. L. MENCKEN

Determination Leadership Rebel Sound
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

Democracy Freedom Right Rule Success War
Most people want security in this world, not liberty.
H. L. MENCKEN

Deep Freedom Liberty People Security
An idealist is one who, on noticing that roses smell better than a cabbage, concludes that it will also make better soup.
H. L. MENCKEN

Ideal Myself Rose
A man may be a fool and not know it, but not if he is married.
H. L. MENCKEN

Fools Funny Himself Man Marriage
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.
H. L. MENCKEN

Desire Funny Glory Greatness Heart
Imagine the Creator as a low comedian, and at once the world becomes explicable.
H. L. MENCKEN

Democracy Freedom Imagination World
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

Fight Government People Wrong
A 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.
H. L. MENCKEN

Freedom Honor Men Order Politics
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
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
Every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods.
H. L. MENCKEN

Election Liberty Material Politics
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
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 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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