1,045 Quotes by H. L. Mencken

The only good bureaucrat is one with a pistol at his head. Put it in his hand and it's good-by to the Bill of Rights.

Complete masculinity and stupidity are often indistinguishable.

A metaphysician is one who, when you remark that twice two makes four, demands to know what you mean by twice, what by two, what by makes, and what by four. For asking such questions metaphysicians are supported in oriental luxury in the universities, and respected as educated and intelligent men.

Better than the rest of us, they [the Jews] sensed what was ahead for their people.

Most people want security in this world, not liberty.

Poverty is a soft pedal upon the branches of human activity, not excepting the spiritual.

Jealousy is a keen observer, but looks for all the wrong signs.

You come into the world with nothing, and the purpose of your life is to make something out of nothing.

Politics, as hopeful men practise it in the world, consists mainly of the delusion that a change in form is a change in substance.