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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

The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.
H. L. MENCKEN

Freedom Humanity Peace Rule Save 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
A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin.
H. L. MENCKEN

Death Flower Funny Humor
Sometimes the idiots outvote the sensible people.
H. L. MENCKEN

Democracy People Vote
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
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
If a politician found he had cannibals among his constituents, he would promise them missionaries for dinner.
H. L. MENCKEN

Food Politics Promise
The best teacher is not the one who knows most but the one who is most capable of reducing knowledge to that simple compound of the obvious and wonderful.
H. L. MENCKEN

Education Knowledge Simplicity Teaching Wonderful
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
There’s really no point to voting. If it made any difference, it would probably be illegal.
H. L. MENCKEN

Democracy Difference Vote
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
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
A judge is a law student who marks his own examination papers.
H. L. MENCKEN

Funny Justice Law Student
Free speech is too dangerous to a democracy to be permitted.
H. L. MENCKEN

Danger Democracy Freedom Scare
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
Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under.
H. L. MENCKEN

Freedom Government Integrity Live Men Shame
The theory seems to be that as long as a man is a failure he is one of God’s children, but that as soon as he succeeds he is taken over by the Devil.
H. L. MENCKEN

Children Failure God Man Success Theory
A man may be a fool and not know it, but not if he is married.
H. L. MENCKEN

Fools Funny Himself Man Marriage
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

Citizenship Liberty Lost People War
Change is not progress.
H. L. MENCKEN

Change Difference One Liner Progress
Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.
H. L. MENCKEN

Belief Freedom Ignorance Rule Wisdom
There is no idea so stupid that you can’t find a professor who will believe it.
H. L. MENCKEN

Believe Ideas Stupidity Teaching Yourself
What men value in this world is not rights but privileges.
H. L. MENCKEN

Leadership Men Priviledge Right Value
On one issue, at least, men and women agree. They both distrust women.
H. L. MENCKEN

Funny Issues Man Trust Women
Democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey cage.
H. L. MENCKEN

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

Choice Moral Philosophy Problem Simplicity Wrong
The average man does not get pleasure out of an idea because he thinks it is true; he thinks it is true because he gets pleasure out of it.
H. L. MENCKEN

Himself Ideas Man Thinking True

A sense of humor always withers in the presence of the messianic delusion, like justice and the truth in front of patriotic passion.

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A sense of humor always withers in the presence of the messianic delusion, like justice and the truth in front of patriotic passion.

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