“As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great… — H.L. Mencken Copy Share Image
“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an… — H.L. Mencken Copy Share Image
“Before one may scare the plain people one must first have a firm understanding of the bugaboos that most facilely alarm them.… — H.L. Mencken Copy Share Image
“It seems to be difficult if not impossible for human beings to avoid thinking of government as mystical entity with a nature… — H.L. Mencken Copy Share Image
“The state — or, to make matters more concrete, the government — consists of a gang of men exactly like you and… — H.L. Mencken Copy Share Image
“When a candidate for public office faces the voters he does not face men of sense; he faces a mob of men… — 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, without regard to… — H.L. Mencken Copy Share Image
“Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance. No one in this world, so far as I know—and… — H.L. Mencken Copy Share Image
“Politicians seldom if ever get [into public office] by merit alone, at least in democratic states. Sometimes, to be sure, it happens,… — H.L. Mencken Copy Share Image
“In the present case it is a little inaccurate to say I hate everything. I am strongly in favor of common sense,… — H.L. Mencken Copy Share Image
“All government, in its essence, is a conspiracy against the superior man: its one permanent object is to oppress him and cripple… — H.L. Mencken Copy Share Image
“Years ago I predicted that these suffragettes, tried out by victory, would turn out to be idiots. They are now hard at… — H.L. Mencken Copy Share Image
“I believe that liberty is the only genuinely valuable thing that men have invented, at least in the field of government, in… — 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, without regard to… — H.L. Mencken Copy Share Image
“Suffice it to say that the vile arts of the hussy prevailed over that noble and upright man—that she enticed him, by adroit appeals… — H.L. Mencken Copy Share Image
“I can't recall a single masculine figure created by a woman who is not, at bottom, a booby.” — H.L. Mencken Copy Share Image
“As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious… — H.L. Mencken Copy Share Image
“If there had been any formidable body of cannibals in the country he [Harry Truman] would have promised to provide them with free missionaries,… — H.L. Mencken Copy Share Image
“I have seen something of the horrors of war, and much too much of the worse horrors of peace.” — H.L. Mencken Copy Share Image
“Don’t tell me. I have been there. No longer ago than last Tuesday—or was it last Monday?—I went into one of those big restaurants… — H.L. Mencken Copy Share Image
“ONE OF the most irrational of all the conventions of modern society is the one to the effect that religious opinions should be respected.… — H.L. Mencken Copy Share Image
“But though every normal man thus cherishes the soothing unction that he is the intellectual superior of all women, and particularly of his wife,… — H.L. Mencken Copy Share Image
“If the average man is made in God's image, then a man such as Beethoven or Aristotle is plainly superior to God, and so… — H.L. Mencken Copy Share Image
“The American moron’s mind simply does not run in that direction; he wants to keep his Ford, even at the cost of losing the… — H.L. Mencken Copy Share Image
“Once I ventured the guess that men worked in response to a vague inner urge for self-expression. But that was probably a shaky theory,… — H.L. Mencken Copy Share Image
“He writes the worst English that I have ever encountered. It reminds me of a string of wet sponges; it reminds me of tattered… — H.L. Mencken Copy Share Image
