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. MENCKENAlways remember this: If you don’t attend the funerals of your friends, they will certainly not attend yours.
More H. L. Mencken Quotes
-
-
The demagogue is one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots.
H. L. MENCKEN -
Laws are no longer made by a rational process of public discussion; they are made by a process of blackmail and intimidation, and they are executed in the same manner
H. L. MENCKEN -
There are two kinds of Europeans: The smart ones, and those who stayed behind.
H. L. MENCKEN -
Journalism is to politician as dog is to lamp-post.
H. L. MENCKEN -
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 -
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 -
Democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey cage.
H. L. MENCKEN -
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 -
Most people want security in this world, not liberty.
H. L. MENCKEN -
A man may be a fool and not know it, but not if he is married.
H. L. MENCKEN -
There is no idea so stupid that you can’t find a professor who will believe it.
H. L. MENCKEN -
Freedom of press is limited to those who own one.
H. L. MENCKEN -
Imagine the Creator as a low comedian, and at once the world becomes explicable.
H. L. MENCKEN -
In this world of sin and sorrow there is always something to be thankful for; as for me, I rejoice that I am not a Republican.
H. L. MENCKEN -
If a politician found he had cannibals among his constituents, he would promise them missionaries for dinner.
H. L. MENCKEN