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H. L. Mencken Quotes

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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.

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.

Funny, Heart, Land

The Baltimore Sun, July 26, 1920.

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

Freedom, Democracies Have, Government

H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.29, Vintage

The government consists of a gang of men exactly like you and me. They have, taking one with another, no special talent for the business of government; they have only a talent for getting and holding office. Their principal device to that end is to search out groups who pant and pine for something they can't get and to promise to give it to them. Nine times out of ten that promise is worth nothing. The tenth time is made good by looting A to satisfy B. In other words, government is a broker in pillage, and every election is sort of an advance auction sale of stolen goods.

Lying, Men, Office

"Charting the Candidates '72" by Ronald Van Doren, 1972.

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.

Success, Truth, Liars

H. L. Mencken (1924). “Prejudices Fourth Series”

It is the classic fallacy of our time that a moron run through a university and decorated with a Ph.D. will thereby cease to be a moron.

Running, Classic, Moron

The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.

Peace, Freedom, War

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?

Cheating, Honesty, Lying

There's no underestimating the intelligence of the American public.

Intelligence, Underestimate

Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.

Freedom, Democracies Have, People

A Little Book in C Major ch. 2 (1916)

The demagogue is one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots.

Men, Cynical, Doctrine

H.L. Mencken (2013). “Notes On Democracy”, p.76, Knopf

The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out... without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, intolerable.

Men, Thinking, Social Taboos

H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.145, Vintage

Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.

Funny, Badass, Anger

H. L. Mencken, Marion Elizabeth Rodgers (2010). “H.L. Mencken: Prejudices: First, Second, and Third Series”, Hubsta Ltd

Morality is doing what is right, no matter what you are told. Religion is doing what you are told, no matter what is right.

Motivational, Religion, Atheism

For every problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.

Freedom, Simple, Ethics

The plain fact is that education is itself a form of propaganda - a deliberate scheme to outfit the pupil, not with the capacity to weigh ideas, but with a simple appetite for gulping ideas ready-made. The aim is to make 'good' citizens, which is to say, docile and uninquisitive citizens.

Educational, Simple, Ideas

H. L. Mencken (2000). “H.L. Mencken's Smart Set Criticism”, p.222, Regnery Publishing

The State doesn't just want you to obey, it wants to make you WANT to obey.

Want, States

Probably the worst thing that has happened in America in my time is the decay of confidence in the courts. No one can be sure any more that in a given case they will uphold the plainest mandate of the Constitution. On the contrary, everyone begins to be more or less convinced in advance that they won't. Judges are chosen not because they know the Constitution and are in favor of it, but precisely because they appear to be against it.

America, Judging, Decay

H.L. Mencken (2013). “Minority Report”, p.254, Knopf

The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out for himself.

Men, Thinking, Social Taboos

H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.145, Vintage

A Progressive is one who is in favor of more taxes instead of less, more bureaus and jobholders, more paternalism and meddling, more regulation of private affairs and less liberty. In general, he would be inclined to regard the repeal of any tax as outrageous.

Liberty, Would Be, Favors

The central belief of every moron is that he is the victim of a mysterious conspiracy against his common rights and true deserts.

Rights, Desert, Belief

"A Second Mencken Chrestomathy (Varieties of Envy)". Book by H. L. Mencken, 1995.

Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.

Freedom, Ignorance, Majority Rule

"Notes On Journalism". Chicago Tribune, September 19, 1926.

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.

Courage, Fear, Men

When somebody says it’s not about the money, it’s about the money.

Socialist: A man suffering from an overwhelming conviction to believe what is not true.

Believe, Men, Suffering

If a politician found he had cannibals among his constituents, he would promise them missionaries for dinner.

Political, Promise, Missionary

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