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
The state remains, as it was in the beginning, the common enemy of all well-disposed, industrious and decent men. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
Our whole practical government is grounded in mob psychology and the Boobus Americanus will follow any command that promises to make him… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
No politician is ever benefited by saving money; it is spending it that makes him. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
If experience teaches us anything at all, it teaches us this: that a good politician, under democracy, is quite as unthinkable as… — 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
A great nation is any mob of people which produces at least one honest man a century. — 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
All [zoos] actually offer to the public in return for the taxes spent upon them is a form of idle and witless… — 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
It is [a politician's] business to get and hold his job at all costs. If he can hold it by lying, he… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
People do not expect to find chastity in a whorehouse. Why, then, do they expect to find honesty and humanity in government,… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
When a private citizen is robbed, a worthy man is deprived of the fruits of his industry and thrift; when the government… — 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 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
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
Don't tell me what delusion he entertains regarding God, or what mountebank he follows in politics, or what he springs from, or… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
Consider him in his highest incarnation: the university professor. What is his function? Simply to pass on to fresh generations of numskulls… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
The main thing that every political campaign in the United States demonstrates is that the politicians of all parties, despite their superficial… — 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
A national political campaign is better than the best circus ever heard of, with a mass baptism and a couple of hangings… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
There are some politicians who, if their constituents were cannibals, would promise them missionaries in every pot. — 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 only way that a government can provide for jobs for all citizens is by deciding what every man should do. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
The older I grow the less I esteem mere ideas. In politics, particularly, they are transient and unimportant. . . . There… — 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
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 theory behind representative government is that superior men-or at least men not inferior to the average in ability and integrity-are chosen… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
In the United States...politics is purged of all menace, all sinister quality, all genuine significance, and stuffed with such gorgeous humors, such… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
Government, in its very essence, is opposed to all increase in knowledge. Its tendency is always towards permanence and against change...[T]he progress… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
No professional politician is ever actually in favor of public economy. It is his implacable enemy, and he knows it. All professional… — 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 menacing… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
It is not a sign of communal well-being when men turn to their government to execute all their business for them, but… — 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
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
“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
A bad artist almost always tries to conceal his incompetence by whooping up a new formula. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share
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
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
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
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
Women have simple tastes. They get pleasure out of the conversation of children in arms and men in love. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share
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
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
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
To the extent that I am genuinely educated, I am suspicious of all the things that the average citizen believes and the average pedagogue… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share
Philosophy first constructs a scheme of happiness and then tries to fit the world to it. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share
For it is the natural tendency of the ignorant to believe what is not true. In order to overcome that tendency it is not… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share
![“All [zoos] actually offer to the public in return for the taxes spent upon them is a form of idle and witless amusement, compared to which a visit to a penitentiary, or even to a State legislature in session, is informing, stimulating and ennobling.” quote by H. L. Mencken](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/c9f/h-l-mencken-245_amusement_all-zoos-actually-offer-to-the-public-in_2331099.png)
![“It is [a politician's] business to get and hold his job at all costs. If he can hold it by lying, he will hold it by lying; if lying peters out, he will try to hold it by embracing new truths. His ear is ever close to the ground.” quote by H. L. Mencken](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/f30/h-l-mencken-245_business_it-is-a-politician-s-business-to-get-and_410481.png)
![“Government, in its very essence, is opposed to all increase in knowledge. Its tendency is always towards permanence and against change...[T]he progress of humanity, far from being the result of government, has been made entirely without its aid and in the face if its constant and bitter opposition.” quote by H. L. Mencken](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/f1e/h-l-mencken-245_aids_government-in-its-very-essence-is-oppose_2900850.png)
![“[Government] is apprehended, not as a committee of citizens chosen to carry on the communal business of the whole population, but as a separate and autonomous corporation, mainly devoted to exploiting the population for the benefit of its own members.” quote by H. L. Mencken](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/0ec/h-l-mencken-245_autonomous_government-is-apprehended-not-as-a-commi_1115230.jpg)
