Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.
H. L. MENCKENThe 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.
More H. L. Mencken Quotes
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Don’t overestimate the decency of the human race.
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Change is not progress.
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The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.
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Sometimes the idiots outvote the sensible people.
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When somebody says it’s not about the money, it’s about the money.
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Puritanism. The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.
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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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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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Laws are no longer made by a rational process of public discussion; they are made by a process of blackmail and intimidation, and they are executed in the same manner
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Free speech is too dangerous to a democracy to be permitted.
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After all is said and done, a hell lot of a lot more is said than done.
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Socialist: A man suffering from an overwhelming conviction to believe what is not true.
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A judge is a law student who marks his own examination papers.
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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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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.
H. L. MENCKEN






