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Freedom Quotes by H. L. Mencken

57 Freedom quotes by H. L. Mencken

All Freedom quotes H. L. Mencken’s page

H. L. Mencken sees liberty as a two‑sided gift that can help a people but also be misused. He argues that forcing liberty on anyone is wrong and that democracy often lets ignorance win. He warns that taking someone’s freedom for yourself can turn you into a tyrant.

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Liberals have many tails and chase them all.

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For every problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.

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Imagine the Creator as a low comedian, and at once the world becomes explicable.

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We must be willing to pay a price for freedom.

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All government, of course, is against liberty.

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Lawyer: one who protects us against robbery by taking away the temptation.

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The only time you have a free press is when you own one.

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Most people want security in this world, not liberty.

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The two main ideas that run through all of my writing, whether it be literary criticism or political polemic are these: I…

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Hanging one scoundrel, it appears, does not deter the next. Well, what of it? The first one is at least disposed of.

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If there had been any formidable body of cannibals in the country, Harry Truman would have promised to provide them with free…

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The kind of man who demands that government enforce his ideas is always the kind whose ideas are idiotic.

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

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Firmness in decision is often merely a form of stupidity. It indicates an inability to think the same thing out twice.

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The only liberty an inferior man really cherishes is the liberty to quit work, stretch out in the sun, and scratch himself.

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No form of liberty is worth a darn [sic] which doesn't give us the right to do wrong now and then.

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A professional politician is a professionally dishonorable man. In order to get anywhere near high office he has to make so many…

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It is the theory of all modern civilized governments that they protect and foster the liberty of the citizen; it is the…

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I believe in the complete freedom of thought and speech - alike for the humblest man and the mightiest, and in the…

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I have long been convinced that the idea of liberty is abhorrent to most human beings. What they want is security, not…

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It is the fundamental theory of all the more recent American law...that the average citizen is half-witted, and hence not to be…

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As for me, my literary theory, like my politics, is based chiefly upon one main idea, to wit, the idea of freedom.…

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All [zoos] actually offer to the public in return for the taxes spent upon them is a form of idle and witless…

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The argument that capital punishment degrades the state is moonshine, for if that were true then it would degrade the state to…

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Democracy turns upon and devours itself. Universal suffrage, in theory the palladium of our liberties, becomes the assurance of our slavery. And…

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The fact is that the average man's love of liberty is nine-tenths imaginary, exactly like his love of sense, justice and truth.…

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The whole drift of our law is toward the absolute prohibition of all ideas that diverge in the slightest form from the…

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It seems to me that society usually wins. There are, to be sure, free spirits in the world, but their freedom, in…

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One of the main purposes of laws in a democratic society is to put burdens upon intelligence and reduce it to impotence.…

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The fact is that liberty, in any true sense, is a concept that lies quite beyond the reach of the inferior man's…

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Liberty ... was a two-headed boon. There was first, the liberty of the people as a whole to determine the forms of…

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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…

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The liberation of the human mind has never been furthered by dunderheads.

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Economic independence is the foundation of the only sort of freedom worth a damn

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Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.

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I am against slavery simply because I dislike slaves.

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Truth would quickly cease to be stranger than fiction, once we got as used to it.

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Remorse-Regret that one waited so long to do it.

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Truth - Something somehow discreditable to someone.

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All I ask is equal freedom. When it is denied, as it always is, I take it anyhow.

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More by H. L. Mencken

Alimony - the ransom that the happy pay to the devil.

A bad artist almost always tries to conceal his incompetence by whooping up a new formula.

By profession a biologist, [Thomas Henry Huxley] covered in fact the whole field of the exact sciences, and then bulged through its four fences.…

So few men are really worth knowing, that it seems a shameful waste to let an anthropoid prejudice stand in the way of free…

Man's objection to love is that it dies hard; woman's, that when it is dead, it stays dead.

The lunatic fringe wags the underdog.

For it is an absurdity to call a country civilized in which a decent and industrious man, laboriously mastering a trade which is valuble…

Women have simple tastes. They get pleasure out of the conversation of children in arms and men in love.

The critic, to interpret his artist, even to understand his artist, must be able to get into the mind of his artist; he must…

There is, in fact, nothing about religious opinions that entitles them to any more respect than other opinions get. On the contrary, they tend…

Don't overestimate the decency of the human race.

Liberty ... was a two-headed boon. There was first, the liberty of the people as a whole to determine the forms of their own…

To the extent that I am genuinely educated, I am suspicious of all the things that the average citizen believes and the average pedagogue…

Philosophy first constructs a scheme of happiness and then tries to fit the world to it.

For it is the natural tendency of the ignorant to believe what is not true. In order to overcome that tendency it is not…