Love is like war: easy to begin but very hard to stop.
H. L. MENCKENThere are two kinds of Europeans: The smart ones, and those who stayed behind.
More H. L. Mencken Quotes
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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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Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.
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Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.
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When fanatics are on top there is no limit to oppression.
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Puritanism. The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.
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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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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 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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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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What men value in this world is not rights but privileges.
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Every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods.
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The final test of truth is ridicule. Very few dogmas have ever faced it and survived.
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Sometimes the idiots outvote the sensible people.
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Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under.
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A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin.
H. L. MENCKEN