I believe that all government is evil, and that trying to improve it is largely a waste of time. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
A tin horn politician with the manner of a rural corn doctor and the mien of a ham actor — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
[Government's] great contribution to human wisdom...is the discovery that the taxpayer has more than one pocket. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
A politician normally prospers under democracy in proportion ... as he excels in the invention of imaginary perils and imaginary defenses against them. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
Nothing is so abject and pathetic as a politician who has lost his job, save only a retired stud-horse. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
A politician is an animal which can sit on a fence and yet keep both ears to the ground. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
For me to go into politics would be like sending a virgin into a house of ill-repute. — 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
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
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
“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 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
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
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
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
Politics, under a democracy, reduces itself to a mere struggle for office by flatterers of the proletariat; even when a superior man… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
Has the art of politics no apparent utility? Does it appear to be unqualifiedly ratty, raffish, sordid, obscene, and low down, andits… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
All the political seers and sorcerers seem to be agreed that the coming Presidential campaign will be full of bitterness, and that… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
And what is a good citizen? Simply one who never says, does or thinks anything that is unusual. Schools are maintained in… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
Of all the classes of men, I dislike the most those who make their livings by talking - actors, clergymen, politicians, pedagogues,… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
The art of politics, under democracy, is simply the art of ringing it. Two branches reveal themselves. There is the art of… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
All the great enterprises of the world are run by a few smart men: their aides and associates run down by rapid… — 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
He sailed through American history like a steel ship loaded with monoliths of granite. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
The saddest life is that of a political aspirant under democracy. His failure is ignominious and his success is disgraceful. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
Socialist: A man suffering from an overwhelming conviction to believe what is not true. — 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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
The worst government is the most moral. One composed of cynics is often very tolerant and humane. But when fanatics are on… — 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
Capitalism undoubtedly has certain boils and blotches upon it, but has it as many as government? Has it as many as marriage?… — 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
![“[Government's] great contribution to human wisdom...is the discovery that the taxpayer has more than one pocket.” quote by H. L. Mencken](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/774/h-l-mencken-245_contribution_government-s-great-contribution-to-human_2023094.jpg)
![“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/quotes/img-quotes/a3e/h-l-mencken-245_art_mankind-has-failed-miserably-in-its-effo_1593851.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)
