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Love is like war: easy to begin but very hard to stop.

H. L. Mencken

All government, in its essence, is a conspiracy against the superior man: its one permanent object is to oppress him and cripple him.
H. L. MENCKEN

Government Himself Men Oppression
After all is said and done, a hell lot of a lot more is said than done.
H. L. MENCKEN

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

Difference Kind Smart Stay
Freedom of press is limited to those who own one.
H. L. MENCKEN

Freedom Funny Limitation Oneself Politics
It is the classic fallacy of our time that a moron run through a university and decorated with a Ph.D. will thereby cease to be a moron.
H. L. MENCKEN

Education Ourselves Run Time
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.
H. L. MENCKEN

Equality Forever Ideal Law Men Priviledge Right World
Morality is doing what is right, no matter what you are told. Religion is doing what you are told, no matter what is right.
H. L. MENCKEN

Atheist Moral Motivational Religion Right
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
For every problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
H. L. MENCKEN

Choice Moral Philosophy Problem Simplicity Wrong
The central belief of every moron is that he is the victim of a mysterious conspiracy against his common rights and true deserts.
H. L. MENCKEN

Belief Himself Mystery Right True Victim
Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.
H. L. MENCKEN

Anger Black Funny Hands Time
There’s really no point to voting. If it made any difference, it would probably be illegal.
H. L. MENCKEN

Democracy Difference Vote
Once a woman passes a certain point in intelligence she finds it almost impossible to get a husband: she simply cannot go on listening without snickering.
H. L. MENCKEN

Heart Husband Intelligence Listening Men Simplicity Woman
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

Citizenship Education Learning Liberty Possible Reality Simplicity
Change is not progress.
H. L. MENCKEN

Change Difference One Liner Progress
Puritanism. The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.
H. L. MENCKEN

Fear God Happiness
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.
H. L. MENCKEN

Daring Lying Man People Success Truth Violence
No professional politician is ever actually in favor of public economy. It is his implacable enemy, and he knows it. All professional politicians are dedicated wholeheartedly to waste and corruption. They are the enemies of every decent man.
H. L. MENCKEN

Corruption Dedication Enemy Himself Man Politics Professional Waste
The demagogue is one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots.
H. L. MENCKEN

Himself Men Oneself
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
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.
H. L. MENCKEN

Forever Freedom Hate Honesty Myself Strong
A judge is a law student who marks his own examination papers.
H. L. MENCKEN

Funny Justice Law Student
Journalism is to politician as dog is to lamp-post.
H. L. MENCKEN

Career Dog Journalism Politics
Imagine the Creator as a low comedian, and at once the world becomes explicable.
H. L. MENCKEN

Democracy Freedom Imagination World
Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.
H. L. MENCKEN

Democracy Deserve Freedom People Theory
Most people want security in this world, not liberty.
H. L. MENCKEN

Deep Freedom Liberty People Security

Love is like war: easy to begin but very hard to stop.

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Love is like war: easy to begin but very hard to stop.

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