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H. L. Mencken Quotes - Page 3

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Free speech is too dangerous to a democracy to be permitted

Free speech is too dangerous to a democracy to be permitted

Democracy, Speech, Free Speech

Democracy is also a form of worship. It is the worship of Jackals by Jackasses.

Freedom, Democracies Have, Religion

The main thing that every political campaign in the United States demonstrates is that the politicians of all parties, despite their superficial enmities, are really members of one great brotherhood. Their principal, and indeed their sole, object is to collar public office, with all the privileges and profits that go therewith. They achieve this collaring by buying votes with other people's money.

Party, Office, People

H.L. Mencken (2013). “Minority Report”, p.209, Knopf

Moral certainty is always a sign of cultural inferiority. The more uncivilized the man, the surer he is that he knows precisely what is right and what is wrong. All human progress, even in morals, has been the work of men who have doubted the current moral values, not of men who have whooped them up and tried to enforce them. The truly civilized man is always skeptical and tolerant.

Inspirational, Men, Progress

H.L. Mencken (2013). “Minority Report”, p.416, Knopf

A man may be a fool and not know it, but not if he is married.

Funny, Anniversary, Marriage

H.L. Mencken “A little book in C major”, Рипол Классик

The average man never really thinks from end to end of his life. The mental activity of such people is only a mouthing of cliches. What they mistake for thought is simply a repetition of what they have heard. My guess is that well over 80 percent of the human race goes through life without having a single original thought.

Mistake, Men, Thinking

The State is not force alone. It depends upon the credulity of man quite as much as upon his docility. Its aim is not merely to make him obey, but also to make him want to obey.

Men, Want, States

H.L. Mencken (2013). “Minority Report”, p.315, Knopf

It is the natural tendency of the ignorant to believe what is not true. In order to overcome that tendency it is not sufficient to exhibit the true; it is also necessary to expose and denounce the false.

Believe, Order, Ignorant

"The American Mercury" Magazine, May 1926.

When fanatics are on top there is no limit to oppression.

Peace, War, Limits

"The Oxford Dictionary of Political Quotations" edited by Antony Jay, 1996.

Democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey cage.

Running, Art, Majority Rule

H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.622, Vintage

A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin.

Funny, Flower, Humor

No professional politician is ever actually in favor of public economy. It is his implacable enemy, and he knows it. All professional politicians are dedicated wholeheartedly to waste and corruption. They are the enemies of every decent man.

Men, Enemy, Favors

"Minority Report: H.L. Mencken's Notebooks". Book by H. L. Mencken, 204, 1956.

Change is not progress.

Change, Progress

There are two impossibilities in life: "just one drink" and "an honest politician."

Drinking, Two, Honest

A church is a place in which gentlemen who have never been to Heaven brag about it to persons who will never get there.

Funny, Humor, Heaven

"A Little Book in C Major".

[Government's] great contribution to human wisdom...is the discovery that the taxpayer has more than one pocket.

Government, Discovery, Liberty

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.

Gun, Rights, Hands

"On Politics: A Carnival of Buncombe". Book by H L. Mencken, 1956.

A newspaper is a device for making the ignorant more ignorant and the crazy crazier.

Freedom, Crazy, Ignorance

"A Mencken Chrestomathy". Book by H. L. Mencken, 1949.

The cynics are right nine times out of ten.

Funny, Witty, Time

It is even harder for the average ape to believe that he has descended from man.

Funny, Witty, Humorous

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

Law, Intimidation, Made

H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.260, Vintage

The intelligent, like the unintelligent, are responsive to propaganda.

Intelligent, Propaganda, Unintelligent

Whenever "A" attempts by law to impose his moral standards upon "B," "A" is most likely a scoundrel.

Life, War, Government

Civilization, in fact, grows more maudlin and hysterical; especially under democracy it tends to degenerate into a mere combat of crazes; the whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary. Wars are no longer waged by the will of superior men, capable of judging dispassionately and intelligently the causes behind them and the effects flowing out of them. The are now begun by first throwing a mob into a panic; they are ended only when it has spent its ferine fury.

War, Men, Civilization

School days, I believe, are the unhappiest in the whole span of human existence. They are full of dull, unintelligible tasks, new and unpleasant ordinances, brutal violations of common sense and common decency. It doesn't take a reasonably bright boy long to discover that most of what is rammed into him is nonsense, and that no one really cares very much whether he learns it or not.

Believe, School, Boys

H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.308, Vintage

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