H. L. Mencken ( 10 of 103 )
Of government, at least in democratic states, it may be said briefly that it is an agency engaged wholesale, and read more
Of government, at least in democratic states, it may be said briefly that it is an agency engaged wholesale, and as a matter of solemn duty, in the performance of acts which all self-respecting individuals refrain from as a matter of common decency.
Bachelors know more about women than married men; if they didn't, they'd be married too.
Bachelors know more about women than married men; if they didn't, they'd be married too.
Remorse is regret that one waited so long to do it.
Remorse is regret that one waited so long to do it.
Demagogue: one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots.
Demagogue: one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots.
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.
We suffer most when the White House busts with ideas.
We suffer most when the White House busts with ideas.
It is now quite lawful for a Catholic woman to avoid pregnancy by a resort to mathematics, though she is read more
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.
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.
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.
Men become civilized, not in proportion to their willingness to believe, but in proportion to their readiness to doubt.
Men become civilized, not in proportion to their willingness to believe, but in proportion to their readiness to doubt.
