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. MENCKENThe 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.
More H. L. Mencken Quotes
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For every problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
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A man may be a fool and not know it, but not if he is married.
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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.
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Don’t overestimate the decency of the human race.
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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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What men value in this world is not rights but privileges.
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There is no idea so stupid that you can’t find a professor who will believe it.
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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.
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Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.
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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.
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When fanatics are on top there is no limit to oppression.
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After all is said and done, a hell lot of a lot more is said than done.
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The central belief of every moron is that he is the victim of a mysterious conspiracy against his common rights and true deserts.
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The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one’s time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.
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Puritanism. The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.
H. L. MENCKEN






