H. L. Mencken

All government, in its essence, is organized exploitation, and in virtually all of its existing forms it is the implacable read more

All government, in its essence, is organized exploitation, and in virtually all of its existing forms it is the implacable enemy of every industrious and well-disposed man.

The human race is divided into two sharply differentiated and mutually antagonistic classes, almost two genera- a small minority that read more

The human race is divided into two sharply differentiated and mutually antagonistic classes, almost two genera- a small minority that plays with ideas and is capable of taking them in, and a vast majority that finds them painful, and is thus arrayed against them, and against all who have traffic with them. The intellectual heritage of the race belongs to the minority, and to the minority only. The majority has no more to do with it than it has to do with ecclesiastic politics on Mars. In so far as that heritage is apprehended, it is viewed with enmity. But in the main it is not apprehended at all.

The urge to save humanity is almost always only a false-face for the urge to rule it.

The urge to save humanity is almost always only a false-face for the urge to rule it.

Theology is the effort to explain the unknowable in terms of the not worth knowing.

Theology is the effort to explain the unknowable in terms of the not worth knowing.

Fame: an embalmer trembling with stage fright.

Fame: an embalmer trembling with stage fright.