When somebody says it’s not about the money, it’s about the money.
H. L. MENCKENEvangelical Christianity, as everyone knows, is founded upon hate, as the Christianity of Christ was founded upon love.
More H. L. Mencken Quotes
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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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The demagogue is one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots.
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Journalism is to politician as dog is to lamp-post.
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Change is not progress.
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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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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 State doesn’t just want you to obey, it wants to make you WANT to obey.
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Freedom of press is limited to those who own one.
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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.
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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?
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In this world of sin and sorrow there is always something to be thankful for; as for me, I rejoice that I am not a Republican.
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There’s really no point to voting. If it made any difference, it would probably be illegal.
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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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Don’t overestimate the decency of the human race.
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Misogynist: A man who hates women as much as women hate one another.
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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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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.
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There are two impossibilities in life: “just one drink” and “an honest politician.”
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Every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods.
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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 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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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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There is no idea so stupid that you can’t find a professor who will believe it.
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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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Socialist: A man suffering from an overwhelming conviction to believe what is not true.
H. L. MENCKEN