The aim of poetry, it appears, is to fill the mind with lofty thoughts--not to give it joy, but to give it a grand and somewhat gaudy sense of virtue. The essay is a weapon against the degenerate tendencies of the age. The novel, properly conceived, is a means of uplifting the spirit; its aim is to inspire, not merely to satisfy the low curiosity of man in man.

H. L. Mencken

On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.

H. L. Mencken

land heart funny

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.

H. L. Mencken

democracies-have freedom government

The demagogue is one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots.

H. L. Mencken

doctrine cynical men

The men the American people admire most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest most violently are those who try to tell them the truth.

H. L. Mencken

truth liars success

Morality is doing what is right, no matter what you are told. Religion is doing what you are told, no matter what is right.

H. L. Mencken

atheism motivational religion

The government consists of a gang of men exactly like you and me. They have, taking one with another, no special talent for the business of government; they have only a talent for getting and holding office. Their principal device to that end is to search out groups who pant and pine for something they can't get and to promise to give it to them. Nine times out of ten that promise is worth nothing. The tenth time is made good by looting A to satisfy B. In other words, government is a broker in pillage, and every election is sort of an advance auction sale of stolen goods.

H. L. Mencken

office men lying

People do not expect to find chastity in a whorehouse. Why, then, do they expect to find honesty and humanity in government, a congeries of institutions whose modus operandi consists of lying, cheating, stealing, and if need be, murdering those who resist?

H. L. Mencken

honesty lying cheating

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.

H. L. Mencken

social-taboos men thinking

Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.

H. L. Mencken

badass anger funny

When a candidate for public office faces the voters he does not face men of sense; he faces a mob of men whose chief distinguishing mark is the fact that they are quite incapable of weighing ideas, or even of comprehending any save the most elemental - men whose whole thinking is done in terms of emotion, and whose dominant emotion is dread of what they cannot understand. So confronted, the candidate must either bark with the pack or be lost... All the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre.

H. L. Mencken

men ideas thinking

It is inaccurate to say that I hate everything. I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty, and common decency. This makes me forever ineligible for public office.

H. L. Mencken

honesty freedom hate

It is the classic fallacy of our time that a moron run through a university and decorated with a Ph.D. will thereby cease to be a moron.

H. L. Mencken

moron classic running

Every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods.

H. L. Mencken

liberty politics auctions

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

freedom party war

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

H. L. Mencken

uprising causes leader

Socialist: A man suffering from an overwhelming conviction to believe what is not true.

H. L. Mencken

suffering men believe

There is always a well-known solution to every human problem - neat, plausible, and wrong.

H. L. Mencken

funny-inspirational freedom business

The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all; it is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed a standard citizenry, to put down dissent and originality.

H. L. Mencken

learning liberty education

The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.

H. L. Mencken

freedom war peace

Puritanism. The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.

H. L. Mencken

cynical god being-happy