Quote

Has the art of politics no apparent utility? Does it appear to be unqualifiedly ratty, raffish, sordid, obscene, and low down, andits salient virtuosi a gang of unmitigated scoundrels? Then let us not forget its high capacity to soothe and tickle the midriff, its incomparable services as a maker of entertainment.

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
Capacity
Utility
Unmitigated
Politics
Apparent
Tickle
High
Gang
Soothe
Forget
Services
Sordid
Art
Makers
Incomparable
Doe
Appear
Scoundrels
Lows
Obscene
Midriff
Entertainment
Maker
Salient

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The thing constantly overlooked by those hopefuls who talk about abolishing war is that it is by no means an evidence of decay but rather a proof of health and vigor.
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Absence is the dark-room in which lovers develop negatives.
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The central belief of every moron is that he is the victim of a mysterious conspiracy against his common rights and true deserts.
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Man weeps to think that he will die so soon woman, that she was born so long ago.
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When women kiss it always reminds one of prize fighters shaking hands.
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The double standard of morality will survive in this world so long as the woman whose husband has been lured away is favoured with the sympathetic tears of other women, and a man whose wife has made off is laughed at by other men.
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Happiness, like health, is probably also only a passing accident. For a moment or two the organism is irritated so little that it is not conscious of it for the duration of that moment it is happy. Thus a hog is always happier than a man, and a bacillus is happier than a hog
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The final test of truth is ridicule. Very few dogmas have ever faced it and survived.
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It is impossible to believe that the same God who permitted His own son to die a bachelor regards celibacy as an actual sin.
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To wage a war for a purely moral reason is as absurd as to ravish a woman for a purely moral reason
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What restrains us from killing is partly fear of punishment, partly moral scruple, and partly what may be described as a sense of humor
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My guess is that well over eighty per cent. of the human race goes through life without having a single original thought.
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War will never cease until babies begin to come into the world with larger cerebrums and smaller adrenal glands.
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The most curious social convention of the great age in which we live is the one to the effect that religious opinions should be respected.
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The most valuable of all human possessions, next to a superior and disdainful air, is the reputation of being well-to-do.
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The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.
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The truth, indeed, is something that mankind, for some mysterious reason, instinctively dislikes. Every man who tries to tell it is unpopular, and even when, by the sheer strength of his case, he prevails, he is put down as a scoundrel.
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A mood of constructive criticism being upon me, I propose forthwith that the method of choosing legislators now prevailing in the United States be abandoned and that the method used in choosing juries be substituted. That is to say, I propose that the men who make our laws be chosen by chance and against will of all the rest of us, as now.
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Giving every man a vote has no more made men wise and free than Christianity has made them good.
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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.
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