H. L. Mencken Quotes, Thoughts and images

The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.

The demagogue is one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots.

The State doesn't just want you to obey, it wants to make you WANT to obey.

After all, is said and done, a hell lot of a lot more is said than done.

There's really no point in voting. If it made any difference, it would probably be illegal.

For every problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.

Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.

Sometimes the idiots outvote the sensible people.

There are two impossibilities in life: "just one drink" and "an honest politician."

The most dangerous man to any government is the man who can think things out for himself.

There is no idea so stupid that you can't find a professor who will believe it.

When somebody says it’s not about the money, it’s about the money.

Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under.

Puritanism. The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.

The kind of man who demands that government enforce his ideas is always the kind whose ideas are idiotic.

A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin.

Freedom of press is limited to those who own one.

Misogynist: A man who hates women as much as women hate one another.

Most people want security in this world, not liberty.

When fanatics are on top there is no limit to oppression.

Free speech is too dangerous to a democracy to be permitted

Change is not progress.

The final test of truth is ridicule. Very few dogmas have ever faced it and survived.

In every woman's life, there is one real and consuming love. But very few women guess which one it is.

A man may be a fool and not know it, but not if he is married.

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

The central belief of every moron is that he is the victim of a mysterious conspiracy against his common rights and true deserts.

An idealist notices that roses smell better than cabbage and concludes that it will also make better soup.

What men value in this world is not rights but privileges.