It [the State] has taken on a vast mass of new duties and responsibilities; it has spread out its powers until they penetrate to every act of the citizen, however secret; it has begun to throw around its operations the high dignity and impeccability of a State religion; its agents become a separate and superior caste, with authority to bind and loose, and their thumbs in every pot. But it still remains, as it was in the beginning, the common enemy of all well-disposed, industrious and decent men.
Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.
Source: A Little Book in C major (1916)
[link] #80If a politician found he had cannibals among his constituents, he would promise them missionaries for dinner.
I believe that liberty is the only genuinely valuable thing that men have invented, at least in the field of government, in a thousand years. I believe that it is better to be free than to be not free, even when the former is dangerous and the latter safe. I believe that the finest qualities of man can flourish only in free air -- that progress made under the shadow of the policeman's club is false progress, and of no permanent value. 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.
Source: Why Liberty? (Chicago Tribune, 30 January 1927) #91
Government is actually the worst failure of civilized man. There has never been a really good one, and even those that are most tolerable are arbitrary, cruel, grasping, and unintelligent.
Source: Minority Report: H.L. Mencken's Notebooks (1956)
[link] #99I believe in complete freedom of thought and speech, alike for the humblest man and the mightiest, and in the utmost freedom of conduct that is consistent with living in organized society.
Source: What I Believe (1930)
[link] #269The freedom of nations is of little human value. It is only the liberty of the individual that counts.
The plain fact is that education is itself a form of propaganda - a deliberate scheme to outfit the pupil, not with the capacity to weigh ideas, but with a simple appetite for gulping ideas ready-made. The aim is to make 'good' citizens, which is to say, docile and uninquisitive citizens.
The State is not force alone. It depends upon the credulity of man quite as much as upon his docility. Its aim is not merely to make him obey, but also to make him want to obey.
Source: Minority Report (1956)
[link] #610The kind of man who wants the government to adopt and enforce his ideas is always the kind of man whose ideas are idiotic.
Source: Minority Report (1956)
[link] #681About H. L. Mencken
Henry Louis Mencken (September 12, 1880 - January 29, 1956), was an American journalist, essayist, magazine editor, satirist, acerbic critic of American life and culture, and a scholar of American English. Mencken, known as the "Sage of Baltimore", is regarded as one of the most influential American writers and prose stylists of the first half of the 20th century. Many of his books are still in print.
In addition to his literary accomplishments, Mencken was known for his controversial ideas. Mencken wrote many articles about the social scene, literature, music, prominent politicians, pseudo-experts, temperance, and uplifters. He was particularly critical of anti-intellectualism, bigotry, populism, Christian fundamentalism, creationism, organized religion, the existence of God, and osteopathic/chiropractic medicine. He was a keen cheerleader of scientific progress but very skeptical of economic theories.
Additional Resources
H. L. Mencken - Wikipedia
