H. L. Mencken Quotes

No matter how happily a woman may be married, it always pleases her to discover that there is a nice man who wishes that she were not.

H. L. Mencken

Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.

H. L. Mencken

Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule - and both commonly succeed, are right

H. L. Mencken

The capacity of human beings to bore one another seems to be vastly greater than that of any other animal.

H. L. Mencken

I believe that all government is evil, and that trying to improve it is largely a waste of time.

H. L. Mencken

Temptation is a woman's weapon and man's excuse.

H. L. Mencken

For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.

H. L. Mencken

The theatre, when all is said and done, is not life in miniature, but life enormously magnified, life hideously exaggerated.

H. L. Mencken

The average man does not want to be free. He simply wants to be safe.

H. L. Mencken

Criticism is prejudice made plausible.

H. L. Mencken

Democracy is only a dream: it should be put in the same category as Arcadia, Santa Claus, and Heaven.

H. L. Mencken

Philosophy consists very largely of one philosopher arguing that all others are jackasses. He usually proves it, and I should add that he also usually proves that he is one himself

H. L. Mencken

Philosophy consists very largely of one philosopher arguing that all others are jackasses. He usually proves it, and I should add that he also usually proves that he is one himself.

H. L. Mencken

I believe that liberty is the only genuinely valuable thing that men have invented, at least in the field of government, in a thousand years. I believe that it is better to be free than to be not free, even when the former is dangerous and the latter safe. I believe that the finest qualities of man can flourish only in free air ñ that progress made under the shadow of the policeman's club is false progress, and of no permanent value. I believe that any man who takes the liberty of another into his keeping is bound to become a tyrant, and that any man who yields up his liberty, in however slight the measure, is bound to become a slave.

H. L. Mencken

As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their hearts desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron

H. L. Mencken
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