Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
Quote
[T]here is only one sound argument for democracy, and that is the argument that it is a crime for any man to hold himself out as better than other men, and, above all, a most heinous offense for him to prove it.
H. L. Mencken
Share
Change background
T
T
T
Change font
Original
TAGS & TOPICS
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
Men
Offense
Argument
Prove
Crime
Hold
Democracy
Sound
Better
Heinous
More quotes by H. L. Mencken
The world always makes the assumption that the exposure of an error is identical with the discovery of truth - that error and truth are simply opposite. They are nothing of the sort. What the world turns to, when it has been cured of one error, is usually simply another error, and maybe one worse than the first one.
H. L. Mencken
He slept more than any other president, whether by day or by night. Nero fiddled, but Coolidge only snored.
H. L. Mencken
But I wonder where we will land if trial judges begin deciding that the fact that a man has committed an atrocious crime is proof sufficient that he is not responsible for his acts.
H. L. Mencken
Have you ever watched a crab on the shore crawling backward in search of the Atlantic Ocean, and missing? That's the way the mind of man operates.
H. L. Mencken
The best years are the forties after fifty a man begins to deteriorate, but in the forties he is at the maximum of his villainy.
H. L. Mencken
The saddest life is that of a political aspirant under democracy. His failure is ignominious and his success is disgraceful.
H. L. Mencken
The common notion that free speech prevails in the United States always makes me laugh.
H. L. Mencken
Philadelphia is the most pecksniffian of American cities, and thus probably leads the world.
H. L. Mencken
Man is a natural polygamist: he always has one woman leading him by the nose, and another hanging on to his coattails.
H. L. Mencken
It is impossible to imagine the universe run by a wise, just and omnipotent God, but it is quite easy to imagine it run by a board of gods.
H. L. Mencken
Poetry is a comforting piece of fiction set to more or less lascivious music.
H. L. Mencken
A professional politician is a professionally dishonorable man. In order to get anywhere near high office he has to make so many compromises and submit to so many humiliations that he becomes indistinguishable from a streetwalker.
H. L. Mencken
Democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey cage.
H. L. Mencken
History deals mainly with captains and kings, gods and prophets, exploiters and despoilers, not with useful men.
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
A politician normally prospers under democracy in proportion ... as he excels in the invention of imaginary perils and imaginary defenses against them.
H. L. Mencken
The average man never really thinks from end to end of his life. The mental activity of such people is only a mouthing of clichés.
H. L. Mencken
In the main, there are two sorts of books: those that no one reads and those that no one ought to read.
H. L. Mencken
A newspaper is a device for making the ignorant more ignorant and the crazy crazier.
H. L. Mencken
Unsuccessful candidates for the Presidency should be quietly hanged as a matter of public sanitation and decorum.
H. L. Mencken