H.L. Mencken

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.

Unquestionably, there is progress. The average American now pays out twice as much in taxes as he formerly got in wages.

After all, all he did was string together a lot of old, well-known quotations.

We must repsect 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 are smart.

The fact that I have no remedy for all the sorrows of the world is no reason for my accepting yours. It simply supports the strong probability that yours is a fake.

No one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public.

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

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

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

An idealist is one who, on noticing that a rose smells better than a cabbage, concludes that it will also make better soup.