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Don't overestimate the decency of the human race.
H. L. Mencken
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H. L. Mencken
Age: 75 †
Born: 1880
Born: September 12
Died: 1956
Died: January 29
Autobiographer
Essayist
Historian
Journalist
Linguist
Literary Critic
Satirist
Social Critic
Writer
Baltimore
Maryland
Henry Louis Mencken
Humans
Overestimate
Decency
Dignity
Literature
Race
Human
More quotes by H. L. Mencken
Evil: That which one believes of others. It is a sin to believe evil of others, but it is seldom a mistake
H. L. Mencken
All talk of winning the people by appealing to their intelligence, of conquering them by impeccable syllogism, is so much moonshine.
H. L. Mencken
Science, at bottom, is really anti-intellectual. It always distrusts pure reason, and demands the production of objective fact.
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Every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods.
H. L. Mencken
The cure for the evils of democracy is more democracy.
H. L. Mencken
I believe that religion, generally speaking, has been a curse to mankind.
H. L. Mencken
The idea that the sole aim of punishment is to prevent crime is obviously grounded upon the theory that crime can be prevented, which is almost as dubious as the notion that poverty can be prevented.
H. L. Mencken
Only a jackass ever talks over his affairs with a woman, whether she be his sweetheart, wife, or sister, or mother.
H. L. Mencken
The trouble with Communism is the Communists, just as the trouble with Christianity is the Christians.
H. L. Mencken
When a new source of taxation is found it never means, in practice, that the old source is abandoned. It merely means that the politicians have two ways of milking the taxpayer where they had one before.
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.
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The Christian always swears a bloody oath that he will never do it again. The civilized man simply resolves to be a bit more careful next time.
H. L. Mencken
Sometimes the idiots outvote the sensible people.
H. L. Mencken
School teachers, taking them by and large, are probably the most ignorant and stupid class of men in the whole group of mental workers.
H. L. Mencken
If a sense of duty tortures a man, it also enables him to achieve prodigies.
H. L. Mencken
The notion that a radical is one who hates his country is naïve and usually idiotic. He is, more likely, one who likes his country more than the rest of us, and is thus more disturbed than the rest of us when he sees it debauched. He is not a bad citizen turning to crime he is a good citizen driven to despair.
H. L. Mencken
It is the theory of all modern civilized governments that they protect and foster the liberty of the citizen it is the practice of all of them to limit its exercise, and sometimes very narrowly.
H. L. Mencken
Hamlet has been played by 5,000 actors, no wonder he is crazy.
H. L. Mencken
It is the natural tendency of the ignorant to believe what is not true. In order to overcome that tendency it is not sufficient to exhibit the true it is also necessary to expose and denounce the false.
H. L. Mencken
Men are the only animals that devote themselves, day in and day out, to making one another unhappy. It is an art like any other. Its virtuosi are called altruists.
H. L. Mencken
