Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out for himself. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
The only good bureaucrat is one with a pistol at his head. Put it in his hand and it's good-bye to the… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
The ideal Government of all reflective men, from Aristotle onward, is one which lets the individual alone - one which barely escapes… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
The American people, North and South, went into the [Civil] war as citizens of their respective states, they came out as subjects… — 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
The New Deal began, like the Salvation Army, by promising to save humanity. It ended, again like the Salvation Army, by running… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
The average man's love of liberty is nine-tenths imaginary, exactly like his love of sense, justice and truth... It takes a special… — 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
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
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 government, to levy their own taxes, and to make their own laws… There was second, the liberty of the individual man to live his own life, within the limits of decency and decorum, as he pleased… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share
![“The American people, North and South, went into the [Civil] war as citizens of their respective states, they came out as subjects ... what they thus lost they have never got back.” quote by H. L. Mencken](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/2a3/h-l-mencken-245_american-people_the-american-people-north-and-south-went_2057722.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)
