There are some politicians who, if their constituents were cannibals, would promise them missionaries in every pot. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
If a politician found he had cannibals among his constituents, he would promise them missionaries for dinner. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
If experience teaches us anything at all, it teaches us this: that a good politician, under democracy, is quite as unthinkable as… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
A great nation is any mob of people which produces at least one honest man a century. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
A national political campaign is better than the best circus ever heard of, with a mass baptism and a couple of hangings… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
No politician is ever benefited by saving money; it is spending it that makes him. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
Our whole practical government is grounded in mob psychology and the Boobus Americanus will follow any command that promises to make him… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
If there had been any formidable body of cannibals in the country, Harry Truman would have promised to provide them with free… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
All [zoos] actually offer to the public in return for the taxes spent upon them is a form of idle and witless… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
Goverment is actually the worst failure of civilized man. There has never been a really good one, and even those that are… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
People constantly speak of 'the government' doing this or that, as they might speak of God doing it. But the government is… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
A professional politician is a professionally dishonorable man. In order to get anywhere near high office he has to make so many… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
The government consists of a gang of men exactly like you and me. They have, taking one with another, no special talent… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
There has been no organized effort to keep government down since Jefferson's day. Ever since then the American people have been bolstering… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
Government, like any other organism, refuses to acquiesce in its own extinction. This refusal, of course, involves the resistance to any effort… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
Don't tell me what delusion he entertains regarding God, or what mountebank he follows in politics, or what he springs from, or… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
Consider him in his highest incarnation: the university professor. What is his function? Simply to pass on to fresh generations of numskulls… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
The government consists of a gang of men exactly like you and me. They have, taking one with another, no special talent… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
All government, in its essence, is a conspiracy against the superior man: it's one permanent object is to oppress him and cripple… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
The extortions and oppressions of government will go on so long as such bare fraudulence deceives and disarms the victims; so long… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
Consider... the university professor. What is his function? Simply to pass on to fresh generations of numskulls a body of so-called knowledge… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
What is any political campaign save a concerted effort to turn out a set of politicians who are admittedly bad and put… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
There are two impossibilities in life: "just one drink" and "an honest politician." — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
In this world of sin and sorrow there is always something to be thankful for; as for me, I rejoice that I… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
He slept more than any other president, whether by day or by night. Nero fiddled, but Coolidge only snored. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
The state remains, as it was in the beginning, the common enemy of all well-disposed, industrious and decent men. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
It is the theory of all modern civilized governments that they protect and foster the liberty of the citizen; it is the… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
Mankind has failed miserably in its effort to devise a rational system of government. [...] The art of government is the exclusive… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
Good government is that which delivers the citizen from being done out of his life and property too arbitrarily and violently-one that… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
Governments, whatever their pretensions otherwise, try to preserve themselves by holding the individual down ... Government itself, indeed, may be reasonably defined… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
A government at bottom is nothing more than a group of men, and as a practical matter most of them are inferior… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
Of government, at least in democratic states, it may be said briefly that it is an agency engaged wholesale, and as a… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule—and both… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
Law and its instrument, government, are necessary to the peace and safety of all of us, but all of us, unless we… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
All government is, in its essence, organized exploitation, and in virtually all of its existing forms it is the implacable enemy of… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
“When a new source of taxation is found it never means, in practice, that an old source is abandoned. It merely means… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out... without regard to the prevailing… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
The net effect of Clarence Darrow's great speech yesterday seemed to be precisely the same as if he had bawled it up… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
Government, in its very essence, is opposed to all increase in knowledge. Its tendency is always towards permanence and against change...[T]he progress… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
A bad artist almost always tries to conceal his incompetence by whooping up a new formula. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share
By profession a biologist, [Thomas Henry Huxley] covered in fact the whole field of the exact sciences, and then bulged through its four fences.… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share
So few men are really worth knowing, that it seems a shameful waste to let an anthropoid prejudice stand in the way of free… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share
Man's objection to love is that it dies hard; woman's, that when it is dead, it stays dead. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share
For it is an absurdity to call a country civilized in which a decent and industrious man, laboriously mastering a trade which is valuble… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share
Women have simple tastes. They get pleasure out of the conversation of children in arms and men in love. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share
The critic, to interpret his artist, even to understand his artist, must be able to get into the mind of his artist; he must… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share
There is, in fact, nothing about religious opinions that entitles them to any more respect than other opinions get. On the contrary, they tend… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share
Liberty ... was a two-headed boon. There was first, the liberty of the people as a whole to determine the forms of their own… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share
To the extent that I am genuinely educated, I am suspicious of all the things that the average citizen believes and the average pedagogue… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share
Philosophy first constructs a scheme of happiness and then tries to fit the world to it. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share
For it is the natural tendency of the ignorant to believe what is not true. In order to overcome that tendency it is not… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share
![“All [zoos] actually offer to the public in return for the taxes spent upon them is a form of idle and witless amusement, compared to which a visit to a penitentiary, or even to a State legislature in session, is informing, stimulating and ennobling.” quote by H. L. Mencken](https://sms4smile.com/q/img-quotes/c9f/h-l-mencken-245_amusement_all-zoos-actually-offer-to-the-public-in_2331099.png)
![“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.” quote by H. L. Mencken](https://sms4smile.com/q/img-quotes/a3e/h-l-mencken-245_art_mankind-has-failed-miserably-in-its-effo_1593851.jpg)
![“Government, in its very essence, is opposed to all increase in knowledge. Its tendency is always towards permanence and against change...[T]he progress of humanity, far from being the result of government, has been made entirely without its aid and in the face if its constant and bitter opposition.” quote by H. L. Mencken](https://sms4smile.com/q/img-quotes/f1e/h-l-mencken-245_aids_government-in-its-very-essence-is-oppose_2900850.png)
