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MAY 22, 2013

H.L. Mencken quotes

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Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.

The common argument that crime is caused by poverty is a kind of slander on the poor.

I believe that all government is evil, and that trying to improve it is largely a waste of time.

It doesn't take a majority to make a rebellion; it takes only a few determined leaders and a sound cause.

Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out ... without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, intolerable.