H. L. Mencken Quotes - Page 3

• Probably the worst thing that has happened in America in my time is the decay of confidence in the courts. No one can be sure any more that in a given case they will uphold the plainest mandate of the Constitution. On the contrary, everyone begins to be more or less convinced in advance that they won't. Judges are chosen not because they know the Constitution and are in favor of it, but precisely because they appear to be against it.

  H. L. Mencken

  America, Judging, Decay

  H.L. Mencken (2013). “Minority Report”, p.254, Knopf

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• A fool who, after plain warning, persists in dosing himself with dangerous drugs should be free to do so, for his death is a benefit to the race in general.

  H. L. Mencken

  Race, Political, Drug

  H.L. Mencken (2013). “Minority Report”, p.423, Knopf

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• Even a superstitious man has certain inalienable rights: the right to harbor and indulge his imbecilities, provided only that he does not try to inflict them upon others by force; he has the right to argue for them as eloquently as he can. But he has no right to be protected from the criticism of those who do not hold them. He has no right to demand that they be treated as sacred. He has no right to preach them without challenge.

  H. L. Mencken

  Men, Rights, Challenges

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• A church is a place in which gentlemen who have never been to Heaven brag about it to persons who will never get there.

  H. L. Mencken

  Funny, Humor, Heaven

  "A Little Book in C Major".

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• The fact is that liberty, in any true sense, is a concept that lies quite beyond the reach of the inferior man's mind. And no wonder, for genuine liberty demands of its votaries a quality he lacks completely, and that is courage. The man who loves it must be willing to fight for it; blood, said Jefferson, is its natural manure. Liberty means self-reliance, it means resolution, it means the capacity for doing without . . . the average man doesn't want to be free. He wants to be safe.

  H. L. Mencken

  Love, Courage, Lying

  Notes on Democracy pt. 3 (1926)

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• There's really no point to voting. If it made any difference, it would probably be illegal.

  H. L. Mencken

  Differences, Voting, Made

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• A man may be a fool and not know it, but not if he is married.

  H. L. Mencken

  Funny, Anniversary, Marriage

  H.L. Mencken “A little book in C major”, Рипол Классик

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• The longest sentence you can form with two words is: I do.

  H. L. Mencken

  Love, Marriage, Couple

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• Once a woman passes a certain point in intelligence she finds it almost impossible to get a husband: she simply cannot go on listening without snickering.

  H. L. Mencken

  Husband, Men, Heartless

  "Prejudices". Fourth Series,

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• The main thing that every political campaign in the United States demonstrates is that the politicians of all parties, despite their superficial enmities, are really members of one great brotherhood. Their principal, and indeed their sole, object is to collar public office, with all the privileges and profits that go therewith. They achieve this collaring by buying votes with other people's money.

  H. L. Mencken

  Party, Office, People

  H.L. Mencken (2013). “Minority Report”, p.209, Knopf

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• No professional politician is ever actually in favor of public economy. It is his implacable enemy, and he knows it. All professional politicians are dedicated wholeheartedly to waste and corruption. They are the enemies of every decent man.

  H. L. Mencken

  Men, Enemy, Favors

  "Minority Report: H.L. Mencken's Notebooks". Book by H. L. Mencken, 204, 1956.

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• The only good bureaucrat is one with a pistol at his head. Put it in his hand and it's good-bye to the Bill of Rights.

  H. L. Mencken

  Gun, Rights, Hands

  "On Politics: A Carnival of Buncombe". Book by H L. Mencken, 1956.

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• Change is not progress.

  H. L. Mencken

  Change, Progress

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• Never argue with a man whose job depends on not being convinced.

  H. L. Mencken

  Jobs, Men, Arguing

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• One of the things that makes a Negro unpleasant to white folk is the fact that he suffers from their injustice. He is thus a standing rebuke to them.

  H. L. Mencken

  White, Justice, Diversity

  H.L. Mencken (2013). “Minority Report”, p.271, Knopf

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• A Progressive is one who is in favor of more taxes instead of less, more bureaus and jobholders, more paternalism and meddling, more regulation of private affairs and less liberty. In general, he would be inclined to regard the repeal of any tax as outrageous.

  H. L. Mencken

  Liberty, Would Be, Favors

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• It is now quite lawful for a Catholic woman to avoid pregnancy by a resort to mathematics, though she is still forbidden to resort to physics or chemistry.

  H. L. Mencken

  Women, Pregnancy, Science

  Minority Report: H. L. Mencken's Notebooks (1956)

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• Women decide the larger questions of life correctly and quickly, not because they are lucky guessers, not because they are divinely inspired, not because they practise a magic inherited from savagery, but simply and solely because they have sense. They see at a glance what most men could not see with searchlights and telescopes.... They are the supreme realists of the race.

  H. L. Mencken

  Men, Race, Magic

  In Defense of Women, rev. ed., pt. 1, ch. 5 (1922)

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• Free speech is too dangerous to a democracy to be permitted

  H. L. Mencken

  Democracy, Speech, Free Speech

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• It is hard to believe that a man is telling the truth when you know that you would lie if you were in his place.

  H. L. Mencken

  Love, Life, Relationship

  H.L. Mencken “A little book in C major”, Рипол Классик

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• The average man never really thinks from end to end of his life. The mental activity of such people is only a mouthing of cliches. What they mistake for thought is simply a repetition of what they have heard. My guess is that well over 80 percent of the human race goes through life without having a single original thought.

  H. L. Mencken

  Mistake, Men, Thinking

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• The most popular man under a democracy is not the most democratic man, but the most despotic man. The common folk delight in the exactions of such a man. They like him to boss them. Their natural gait is the goose step.

  H. L. Mencken

  Men, Common Folk, Boss

  H. L. Mencken, Marion Elizabeth Rodgers (2010). “H.L. Mencken: Prejudices: First, Second, and Third Series”, Hubsta Ltd

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• The final test of truth is ridicule. Very few dogmas have ever faced it and survived.

  H. L. Mencken

  Finals, Tests, Dogma

  H.L. Mencken (1918). “Damn”, p.74, Рипол Классик

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• Democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey cage.

  H. L. Mencken

  Running, Art, Majority Rule

  H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.622, Vintage

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• 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.

  H. L. Mencken

  War, People, Liberty

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