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
If a politician found he had cannibals among his constituents, he would promise them missionaries for dinner. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
There are two impossibilities in life: "just one drink" and "an honest politician." — 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
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
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
[Government] is apprehended, not as a committee of citizens chosen to carry on the communal business of the whole population, but as… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
I do not believe in democracy, but I am perfectly willing to admit that it provides the only really amusing form of… — 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
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
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 tin horn politician with the manner of a rural corn doctor and the mien of a ham actor — 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
All government, in its essence, is a conspiracy against the superior man: it's one permanent object is to oppress him and cripple… — 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
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
No government is ever really in favor of so-called civil rights. It always tries to whittle them down. They are preserved under… — 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
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
The extortions and oppressions of government will go on so long as such bare fraudulence deceives and disarms the victims; so long… — 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
In this world of sin and sorrow there is always something to be thankful for; as for me, I rejoice that I… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
He slept more than any other president, whether by day or by night. Nero fiddled, but Coolidge only snored. — 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
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