If a politician found he had cannibals among his constituents, he would promise them missionaries for dinner.
H. L. MENCKENThere are two impossibilities in life: “just one drink” and “an honest politician.”
More H. L. Mencken Quotes
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Puritanism. The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.
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A man may be a fool and not know it, but not if he is married.
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There are two kinds of Europeans: The smart ones, and those who stayed behind.
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Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.
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Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.
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Every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods.
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It is even harder for the average ape to believe that he has descended from man.
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The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.
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Change is not progress.
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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.
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Imagine the Creator as a low comedian, and at once the world becomes explicable.
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For every problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
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You can’t do anything about the length of your life, but you can do something about its width and depth.
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The only good bureaucrat is one with a pistol at his head. Put it in his hand and it’s good-bye to the Bill of Rights.
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The final test of truth is ridicule. Very few dogmas have ever faced it and survived.
H. L. MENCKEN