1,045 Quotes by H. L. Mencken

If the American people really tire of democracy and want to make a trial of Fascism, I shall be the last person to object. But if that is their mood, then they had better proceed toward their aim by changing the Constitution and not by forgetting it.

The highfalutin aims of democracy, whether real or imaginary, are always assumed to be identical with its achievements. This, of course, is sheer hallucination. Not one of those aims, not even the aim of giving every adult a vote, has been realized. It has no more made men wise and free than Christianity has made them good.

Osteopath--One who argues that all human ills are caused by the pressure of hard bone upon soft tissue. The proof of his theory isto be found in the heads of those who believe it.

Liberty and democracy are eternal enemies, and every one knows it who has ever given any sober reflection to the matter.

The cynics are right nine times out of ten.

There is no record in the history of a nation that ever gained anything valuable by being unable to defend itself.

The average man's love of liberty is nine-tenths imaginary. It takes a special sort of man to understand and enjoy liberty and he is usually an outlaw in democratic societies.

Evil is that which one believes of others.

Five years of Prohibition have had, at least, this one benign effect: they have completely disposed of all the favorite arguments of the Prohibitionists. None of the great boons and usufructs that were to follow the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment has come to pass. There is not less drunkenness in the Republic, but more. There is not less crime, but more. There is not less insanity, but more. The cost of government is not smaller, but vastly greater. Respect for law has not increased, but diminished.