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

The worst government is often the most moral. One composed of cynics is often very tolerant and humane. But when fanatics are on top there is no limit to oppression.

— H. L. Mencken

Time is a great legalizer even in the field of morals.

— H. L. Mencken

Time is a great legalizer even in the fields of morals.

— H. L. Mencken

'Tis more blessed to give than to receive for example wedding presents.

— H. L. Mencken

To be in love is merely to be in a state of perpetual anesthesia: To mistake an ordinary young man for a Greek god or an ordinary young woman for a goddess.

— 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

Unionism seldom if ever uses such powers as it has to ensure better work almost always it devotes a large part of that power to safeguarding bad work.

— H. L. Mencken

War will never cease until babies begin to come into the world with larger cerebrums and smaller adrenal glands.

— H. L. Mencken

We are here and it is now. Further than that all knowledge is moonshine.

— H. L. Mencken