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.
H. L. MENCKENEvery decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under.
More H. L. Mencken Quotes
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Change is not progress.
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When fanatics are on top there is no limit to oppression.
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If a politician found he had cannibals among his constituents, he would promise them missionaries for dinner.
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It doesn’t take a majority to make a rebellion; it takes only a few determined leaders and a sound cause.
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What men value in this world is not rights but privileges.
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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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Free speech is too dangerous to a democracy to be permitted.
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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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Most people want security in this world, not liberty.
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It is inaccurate to say that I hate everything. I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty, and common decency. This makes me forever ineligible for public office.
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The final test of truth is ridicule. Very few dogmas have ever faced it and survived.
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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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When somebody says it’s not about the money, it’s about the money.
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Journalism is to politician as dog is to lamp-post.
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A man may be a fool and not know it, but not if he is married.
H. L. MENCKEN