Economic independence is the foundation of the only sort of freedom worth a damn — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
The liberation of the human mind has never been furthered by dunderheads. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
Lawyer: one who protects us against robbery by taking away the temptation. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
Imagine the Creator as a low comedian, and at once the world becomes explicable. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
For every problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
Hanging one scoundrel, it appears, does not deter the next. Well, what of it? The first one is at least disposed of. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
Liberty and democracy are eternal enemies, and every one knows it who has ever given any sober reflection to the matter. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
The kind of man who demands that government enforce his ideas is always the kind whose ideas are idiotic. — 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
The two main ideas that run through all of my writing, whether it be literary criticism or political polemic are these: I… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
If what I may believe - about gall-stones, the Constitution, castor oil, or God - is conditioned by law, then I am… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
I believe in only one thing: liberty; but I do not believe in liberty enough to want to force it upon anyone. — 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
As for me, my literary theory, like my politics, is based chiefly upon one main idea, to wit, the idea of freedom.… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
It is the fundamental theory of all the more recent American law...that the average citizen is half-witted, and hence not to be… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
I have long been convinced that the idea of liberty is abhorrent to most human beings. What they want is security, not… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
I believe in the complete freedom of thought and speech - alike for the humblest man and the mightiest, and in the… — 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
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
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
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
It seems to me that society usually wins. There are, to be sure, free spirits in the world, but their freedom, in… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
The whole drift of our law is toward the absolute prohibition of all ideas that diverge in the slightest form from the… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
The fact is that the average man's love of liberty is nine-tenths imaginary, exactly like his love of sense, justice and truth.… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
I believe there is a limit beyond which free speech cannot go, but it's a limit that's very seldom mentioned. It's the… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
Liberty ... was a two-headed boon. There was first, the liberty of the people as a whole to determine the forms of… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
The fact is that liberty, in any true sense, is a concept that lies quite beyond the reach of the inferior man's… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
One of the main purposes of laws in a democratic society is to put burdens upon intelligence and reduce it to impotence.… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
Democracy turns upon and devours itself. Universal suffrage, in theory the palladium of our liberties, becomes the assurance of our slavery. And… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
All I ask is equal freedom. When it is denied, as it always is, I take it anyhow. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance. — 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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
Women have simple tastes. They get pleasure out of the conversation of children in arms and men in love. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
![“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/quotes/img-quotes/c9f/h-l-mencken-245_amusement_all-zoos-actually-offer-to-the-public-in_2331099.jpg)
![“By profession a biologist, [Thomas Henry Huxley] covered in fact the whole field of the exact sciences, and then bulged through its four fences. Absolutely nothing was uninteresting to him. His curiosity ranged from music to theology and from philosophy to history. He didn't simply know something…” quote by H. L. Mencken](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/f46/h-l-mencken-245_absolutely-nothing_by-profession-a-biologist-thomas-henry-h_5368.jpg)
