Government is a broker in pillage, and every election is a sort of an advance auction of stolen goods.-- H.L. Mencken

The ideal government of all reflective men, from Aristotle onward, is one which lets the individual alone.-- H.L. Mencken

The only good bureaucrat is one with a pistol at his head. Put it in his hand and it's good-by to the Bill of Rights.-- 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

Communism, like any other revealed religion, is largely made up of prophecies.-- H.L. Mencken

God is the immemorial refuge of the incompetent, the helpless, the miserable. They find not only sanctuary in His arms, but also a kind of superiority, soothing to their macerated egos; He will set them above their betters.-- H.L. Mencken

We must think of human progress, not as of something going on in the race in general, but as something going on in a small minority, perpetually beleaguered in a few walled towns. Now and then the horde of barbarians outside breaks through, and we have an armed effort to halt the process. That is, we have a Reformation, a French Revolution, a war for democracy, a Great Awakening. The minority is decimated and driven to cover. But a few survive- and a few are enough to carry on.-- H.L. Mencken

No matter how happily a woman may be married, it always pleases her to discover that there is a nice man who wishes that she were not.-- H.L. Mencken