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H. L. Mencken Quotes about Evil

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Evil is that which one believes of others.

Evil is that which one believes of others.

H. L. Mencken
Believe, Evil
H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.617, Vintage

The most curious social convention of the great age in which we live is the one to the effect that religious opinions should be respected. Its evil effects must be plain enough to everyone. All it accomplishes is (a) to throw a veil of sanctity about ideas that violate every intellectual decency, and (b) to make every theologian a sort of chartered libertine. No doubt it is mainly to blame for the appalling slowness with which really sound notions make their way in the world.

H. L. Mencken
Religious, Ideas, Evil
H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.80, Vintage

The doctrine that the cure for the evils of democracy is more democracy is like saying that the cure of crime is more crime.

H. L. Mencken
Evil, Democracy, Doctrine

The cure for the evils of democracy is more democracy.

H. L. Mencken
Freedom, Democracies Have, Evil
H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.154, Vintage

Evil: That which one believes of others. It is a sin to believe evil of others, but it is seldom a mistake

H. L. Mencken
Mistake, Believe, Evil
A Little Book in C Major ch. 5 (1916)

Under the pressure of fanaticism, and with the mob complacently applauding the show, democratic law tends more and more to be grounded upon the maxim that every citizen is, by nature, a traitor, a libertine, and a scoundrel. In order to dissuade him from his evil-doing the police power is extended until it surpasses anything ever heard of in the oriental monarchies of antiquity.

H. L. Mencken
Order, Law, Evil
H. L. Mencken (2013). “Notes On Democracy”, p.45, Read Books Ltd

To believe that Russia has got rid of the evils of capitalism takes a special kind of mind. It is the same kind of mind that believes that a Holy Roller has got rid of sin.

H. L. Mencken
Believe, Russia, Evil

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