H. L. Mencken ( 10 of 103 )
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.
Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to read more
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, and are right.
The world always makes the assumption that the exposure of an error is identical with the discovery of truth--that the read more
The world always makes the assumption that the exposure of an error is identical with the discovery of truth--that the error and truth are simply opposite. They are nothing of the sort. What the world turns to, when it is cured on one error, is usually simply another error, and maybe one worse than the first one.
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.
We must think of human progress, not as of something going on in the race in general, but as something read more
We must think of human progress, not as of something going on in the race in general, but as something going on in a small minority, perpetually beleaguered in a few walled towns. Now and then the horde of barbarians outside breaks through, and we have an armed effort to halt the process. That is, we have a Reformation, a French Revolution, a war for democracy, a Great Awakening. The minority is decimated and driven to cover. But a few survive- and a few are enough to carry on.
The only kind of freedom that the mob can imagine is freedom to annoy and oppress its betters, and that read more
The only kind of freedom that the mob can imagine is freedom to annoy and oppress its betters, and that is precisely the kind that we mainly have.
Don't overestimate the decency of the human race.
Don't overestimate the decency of the human race.
The kind of man who wants the government to adopt and enforce his ideas is always the kind of man read more
The kind of man who wants the government to adopt and enforce his ideas is always the kind of man whose ideas are idiotic.
No matter how happily a woman may be married, it always pleases her to discover that there is a nice read more
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.
Every failure teaches a man something, to wit, that he will probably fail again.
Every failure teaches a man something, to wit, that he will probably fail again.
