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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

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

Fools Funny Himself Man Marriage
What men value in this world is not rights but privileges.
H. L. MENCKEN

Leadership Men Priviledge Right Value
When fanatics are on top there is no limit to oppression.
H. L. MENCKEN

Limitation Oppression Power War
A judge is a law student who marks his own examination papers.
H. L. MENCKEN

Funny Justice Law Student
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
Change is not progress.
H. L. MENCKEN

Change Difference One Liner Progress
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
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
The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out for himself.
H. L. MENCKEN

Danger Government Himself Men Thinking
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
The kind of man who demands that government enforce his ideas is always the kind whose ideas are idiotic.
H. L. MENCKEN

Freedom Government Ideas Kind Men
Free speech is too dangerous to a democracy to be permitted.
H. L. MENCKEN

Danger Democracy Freedom Scare
When somebody says it’s not about the money, it’s about the money.
H. L. MENCKEN

Deep Money
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
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

An idealist is one who, on noticing that roses smell better than a cabbage, concludes that it will also make better soup.

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An idealist is one who, on noticing that roses smell better than a cabbage, concludes that it will also make better soup.

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Popular Authors

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