H.L. Mencken Quotes

All government, of course, is against liberty. — H. L. Mencken

I believe that any man who takes the liberty of another into his keeping is bound to become a tyrant, and that any man who yields up his liberty, in however slight the measure, is bound to become a slave. — H. L. Mencken

Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under. — H. L. Mencken

A good politician is quite as unthinkable as an honest burglar — H. L. Mencken

The most dangerous man, to any government, is the man who is able to think things out for himself… Almost inevitably, he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane and intolerable. — H. L. Mencken

Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance. — H. L. Mencken

We must respect the other fellow’s religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart. — H. L. Mencken

Judge: a law student who marks his own papers. — H. L. Mencken

Men become civilized, not in proportion to their willingness to believe, but in their readiness to doubt. — H. L. Mencken

The objection to Puritans is not that they try to make us think as they do, but that they try to make us do as they think. — H. L. Mencken

Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule— and both commonly succeed, and are right. — H. L. Mencken