H. L. Mencken Quotes - Page 4

• 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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• The cynics are right nine times out of ten.

  H. L. Mencken

  Funny, Witty, Time

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• Love is the delusion that one woman differs from another.

  H. L. Mencken

  Love, Delusional, Funny Love

  A Little Book in C Major ch. 1 (1916)

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• Liberty and democracy are eternal enemies, and every one knows it who has ever given any sober reflection to the matter.

  H. L. Mencken

  Reflection, Enemy, Democracy

  "Liberty and Democracy". Baltimore Evening Sun (April 13, 1925) as quoted in "A Second Mencken Chrestomathy: A New Selection from the Writings of America's Legendary Editor, Critic, and Wit" edited by Terry Teachout (p. 35), 1994.

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• [T]he only thing wrong with Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address was that it was the South, not the North, that was fighting for a government of the people, by the people and for the people.

  H. L. Mencken

  Fighting, Government, People

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• It is common to assume that human progress affects everyone - that even the dullest man, in these bright days, knows more than any man of, say, the Eighteenth Century, and is far more civilized. This assumption is quite erroneous. . . . The great masses of men, even in this inspired republic, are precisely where the mob was at the dawn of history. They are ignorant, they are dishonest, they are cowardly, they are ignoble. They know little if anything that is worth knowing, and there is not the slightest sign of a natural desire among them to increase their knowledge.

  H. L. Mencken

  Men, Knowing, Historical

  Homo Neanderthalensis Baltimore Sun, The Impossible Mencken, June 29, 1925.

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• Most people want security in this world, not liberty.

  H. L. Mencken

  Freedom, People, Liberty

  H.L. Mencken (2013). “Minority Report”, p.172, Knopf

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• Laws are no longer made by a rational process of public discussion; they are made by a process of blackmail and intimidation, and they are executed in the same manner

  H. L. Mencken

  Law, Intimidation, Made

  H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.260, Vintage

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• School days, I believe, are the unhappiest in the whole span of human existence. They are full of dull, unintelligible tasks, new and unpleasant ordinances, brutal violations of common sense and common decency. It doesn't take a reasonably bright boy long to discover that most of what is rammed into him is nonsense, and that no one really cares very much whether he learns it or not.

  H. L. Mencken

  Believe, School, Boys

  H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.308, Vintage

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• The common argument that crime is caused by poverty is a kind of slander on the poor.

  H. L. Mencken

  Funny, Humor, Criminals

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

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• Civilization, in fact, grows more maudlin and hysterical; especially under democracy it tends to degenerate into a mere combat of crazes; the whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary. Wars are no longer waged by the will of superior men, capable of judging dispassionately and intelligently the causes behind them and the effects flowing out of them. The are now begun by first throwing a mob into a panic; they are ended only when it has spent its ferine fury.

  H. L. Mencken

  War, Men, Civilization

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• The intelligent, like the unintelligent, are responsive to propaganda.

  H. L. Mencken

  Intelligent, Propaganda, Unintelligent

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• Journalism is to politician as dog is to lamp-post.

  H. L. Mencken

  Dog, Lamps, Journalism

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• Unsuccessful candidates for the Presidency should be quietly hanged as a matter of public sanitation and decorum.

  H. L. Mencken

  Matter, Decorum, Should

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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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• On one issue, at least, men and women agree. They both distrust women.

  H. L. Mencken

  Funny, Hilarious, Women

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

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• When a new source of taxation is found it never means, in practice, that the old source is abandoned. It merely means that the politicians have two ways of milking the taxpayer where they had one before.

  H. L. Mencken

  Mean, Practice, Two

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• A judge is a law student who marks his own examination papers.

  H. L. Mencken

  Funny, Law, Justice

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• [Government's] great contribution to human wisdom...is the discovery that the taxpayer has more than one pocket.

  H. L. Mencken

  Government, Discovery, Liberty

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• The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.

  H. L. Mencken

  Time, Freedom, Fighting

  "Shut Down Chick-fil-A Properly" by James Peron, www.huffingtonpost.com. July 25, 2012.

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• The legislature, like the executive, has ceased to be even the creature of the people: it is the creature of pressure groups, and most of them, it must be manifest, are of dubious wisdom and even more dubious honesty. Laws are no longer made by a rational process of public discussion; they are made by a process of blackmail and intimidation, and they are executed in the same manner. The typical lawmaker of today is a man wholly devoid of principle...

  H. L. Mencken

  Honesty, Men, Law

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• [The] erroneous assumption is to the effect that the aim of public education is to fill the young of the species with knowledge and awaken their intelligence, and so make them fit to discharge the duties of citizenship in an enlightened and independent manner. Nothing could be further from the truth. The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all; it is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardised citizenry, to put down dissent and originality.

  H. L. Mencken

  Knowledge, Independent, Science

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• And what is a good citizen? Simply one who never says, does or thinks anything that is unusual. Schools are maintained in order to bring this uniformity up to the highest possible point. A school is a hopper into which children are heaved while they are still young and tender; therein they are pressed into certain standard shapes and covered from head to heels with official rubber-stamps.

  H. L. Mencken

  Children, School, Thinking

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• The chief difference between free capitalism and State socialism seems to be this: that under the former a man pursues his own advantage openly, frankly and honestly, whereas under the latter he does so hypocritically and under false pretenses.

  H. L. Mencken

  Men, Differences, Doe

  H.L. Mencken (2013). “Minority Report”, p.397, Knopf

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• The way to deal with superstition is not to be polite to it, but to tackle it with all arms, and so rout it, cripple it, and make it forever infamous and ridiculous. Is it, perchance, cherished by persons who should know better? Then their folly should be brought out into the light of day, and exhibited there in all its hideousness until they flee from it, hiding their heads in shame.

  H. L. Mencken

  Light, Forever, Criticism

  "Aftermath". Baltimore Evening Sun, September 14, 1925.

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