Change is not progress.
H. L. MENCKENIt doesn’t take a majority to make a rebellion; it takes only a few determined leaders and a sound cause.
More H. L. Mencken Quotes
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The men the American people admire most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest most violently are those who try to tell them the truth.
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The ideal way to get rid of any infectious disease would be to shoot instantly every person who comes down with it.
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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.
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There are two kinds of Europeans: The smart ones, and those who stayed behind.
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Journalism is to politician as dog is to lamp-post.
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The theory seems to be that as long as a man is a failure he is one of God’s children, but that as soon as he succeeds he is taken over by the Devil.
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Socialist: A man suffering from an overwhelming conviction to believe what is not true.
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When somebody says it’s not about the money, it’s about the money.
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Government’s great contribution to human wisdom is the discovery that the taxpayer has more than one pocket.
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On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.
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The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out for himself.
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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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There are two impossibilities in life: “just one drink” and “an honest politician.”
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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.
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The only thing wrong with Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address was that it was the South, not the North, that was fighting for a government of the people, by the people and for the people.
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Love is like war: easy to begin but very hard to stop.
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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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Always remember this: If you don’t attend the funerals of your friends, they will certainly not attend yours.
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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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Imagine the Creator as a low comedian, and at once the world becomes explicable.
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Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.
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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 chief difference between free capitalism and State socialism seems to be this: that under the former a man pursues his own advantage openly, frankly and honestly, whereas under the latter he does so hypocritically and under false pretenses.
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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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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