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H. L. Mencken Quotes - Page 5

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Most people want security in this world, not liberty.

Most people want security in this world, not liberty.

Freedom, People, Liberty

H.L. Mencken (2013). “Minority Report”, p.172, Knopf

It doesn't take a majority to make a rebellion; it takes only a few determined leaders and a sound cause.

Uprising, Leader, Causes

It [the State] has taken on a vast mass of new duties and responsibilities; it has spread out its powers until they penetrate to every act of the citizen, however secret; it has begun to throw around its operations the high dignity and impeccability of a State religion; its agents become a separate and superior caste, with authority to bind and loose, and their thumbs in every pot. But it still remains, as it was in the beginning, the common enemy of all well-disposed, industrious and decent men.

Taken, Responsibility, Men

The whole drift of our law is toward the absolute prohibition of all ideas that diverge in the slightest form from the accepted platitudes, and behind that drift of law there is a far more potent force of growing custom, and under that custom there is a natural philosophy which erects conformity into the noblest of virtues and the free functioning of personality into a capital crime against society.

Freedom, Philosophy, Ideas

Mankind has failed miserably in its effort to devise a rational system of government. [...] The art of government is the exclusive possession of quacks and frauds. It has been so since the earliest days, and it will probably remain so until the end of time.

Art, Government, Effort

H.L. Mencken (2013). “Minority Report”, p.207, Knopf

Liberty is not for these slaves; I do not advocate inflicting it against their conscience. On the contrary, I am strongly in favor of letting them crawl and grovel all they please before whatever fraud or combination of frauds they choose to venerate...Our whole practical government is grounded in mob psychology and the Boobus Americanus will follow any command that promises to make him safer.

Freedom, Government, Psychology

Don't overestimate the decency of the human race.

Race, Literature, Dignity

Elections are futures markets in stolen property.

Libertarian, Election, Stolen

Government is actually the worst failure of civilized man. There has never been a really good one, and even those that are most tolerable are arbitrary, cruel, grasping and unintelligent.

Men, Liberty, Arbitrary

"Minority Report".

Courtroom : A place where Jesus Christ and Judas Iscariot would be equals, with the betting odds favoring Judas.

Jesus, Odds, America

When a new source of taxation is found it never means, in practice, that the old source is abandoned. It merely means that the politicians have two ways of milking the taxpayer where they had one before.

Mean, Practice, Two

Genius: the ability to prolong one's childhood.

Childhood, Genius, Ability

It is common to assume that human progress affects everyone - that even the dullest man, in these bright days, knows more than any man of, say, the Eighteenth Century, and is far more civilized. This assumption is quite erroneous. . . . The great masses of men, even in this inspired republic, are precisely where the mob was at the dawn of history. They are ignorant, they are dishonest, they are cowardly, they are ignoble. They know little if anything that is worth knowing, and there is not the slightest sign of a natural desire among them to increase their knowledge.

Men, Knowing, Historical

Homo Neanderthalensis Baltimore Sun, The Impossible Mencken, June 29, 1925.

I believe that all government is evil, and that trying to improve it is largely a waste of time.

Life, Wise, Believe

Love is like war: easy to begin but very hard to stop.

Love, Relationship, Anniversary

On one issue, at least, men and women agree. They both distrust women.

Funny, Hilarious, Women

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

The common argument that crime is caused by poverty is a kind of slander on the poor.

Funny, Humor, Criminals

H.L. Mencken (2013). “Minority Report”, p.271, Knopf

There has been no organized effort to keep government down since Jefferson's day. Ever since then the American people have been bolstering up its powers and giving it more and more jurisdiction over their affairs. They pay for that folly in increased taxes and diminished liberties.

Government, People, Giving

H.L. Mencken (2013). “Minority Report”, p.204, Knopf

Never underestimate the booberie of the booboisie.

Underestimate, Never Underestimate

Even a superstitious man has certain inalienable rights: the right to harbor and indulge his imbecilities, provided only that he does not try to inflict them upon others by force; he has the right to argue for them as eloquently as he can. But he has no right to be protected from the criticism of those who do not hold them. He has no right to demand that they be treated as sacred. He has no right to preach them without challenge.

Men, Rights, Challenges

Journalism is to politician as dog is to lamp-post.

Dog, Lamps, Journalism

The ideal way to get rid of any infectious disease would be to shoot instantly every person who comes down with it.

Would Be, Disease, Way

The state remains, as it was in the beginning, the common enemy of all well-disposed, industrious and decent men.

Men, Enemy, Politics

Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence.

Love, Funny, Marriage

Liberty and democracy are eternal enemies, and every one knows it who has ever given any sober reflection to the matter.

Reflection, Enemy, Democracy

"Liberty and Democracy". Baltimore Evening Sun (April 13, 1925) as quoted in "A Second Mencken Chrestomathy: A New Selection from the Writings of America's Legendary Editor, Critic, and Wit" edited by Terry Teachout (p. 35), 1994.

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