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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.

H. L. Mencken

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

Funny Justice Law Student
Always remember this: If you don’t attend the funerals of your friends, they will certainly not attend yours.
H. L. MENCKEN

Age Friendship Remember Yourself
Morality is doing what is right, no matter what you are told. Religion is doing what you are told, no matter what is right.
H. L. MENCKEN

Atheist Moral Motivational Religion Right
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.
H. L. MENCKEN

Democracy Goodness Hands Right
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
Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule—and both commonly succeed, and are right.
H. L. MENCKEN

Democracy Freedom Right Rule Success War
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
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
Misogynist: A man who hates women as much as women hate one another.
H. L. MENCKEN

Feminism Hate Man Women
After all is said and done, a hell lot of a lot more is said than done.
H. L. MENCKEN

Action Hell Talk
No one in this world, so far as I know – and I have searched the records for years, and employed agents to help me – has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people.
H. L. MENCKEN

Greatness Help Intelligence Lost Money Oneself People Search World
Most people want security in this world, not liberty.
H. L. MENCKEN

Deep Freedom Liberty People Security
Socialist: A man suffering from an overwhelming conviction to believe what is not true.
H. L. MENCKEN

Believe Men Suffering True
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
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

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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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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