H. L. Mencken Quotes About Liberty

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

  H. L. Mencken

  Peace, Freedom, War

• Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under.

  H. L. Mencken

  Freedom, Integrity, Men

  "A Mencken Chrestomathy: His Own Selection of His Choicest Writing". Book edited by H. L. Mencken, 1949.
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  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

  Freedom, Democracies Have, Government

  H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.29, Vintage

• 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

  Education, Learning, Liberty

  The American Mercury Magazine, April 24, 1924.

• The ideal Government of all reflective men, from Aristotle onward, is one which lets the individual alone - one which barely escapes being no government at all.

  H. L. Mencken

  Men, Liberty, Libertarian

  H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.146, Vintage

• 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, War, Party

  Minority Report : H.L. Mencken's Notebooks (222), 1956.

• I believe in only one thing: liberty; but I do not believe in liberty enough to want to force it upon anyone.

  H. L. Mencken

  Peace, Freedom, War

• Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.

  H. L. Mencken

  Freedom, Ignorance, Majority Rule

  "Notes On Journalism". Chicago Tribune, September 19, 1926.

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

  H. L. Mencken

  Liberty, Auctions, Politics

  "Prejudices: First Series". Book by H. L. Mencken, 1919.

• The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.

  H. L. Mencken

  Time, Freedom, Fighting

  "Shut Down Chick-fil-A Properly" by James Peron, www.huffingtonpost.com. July 25, 2012.

• We suffer most when the White House busts with ideas.

  H. L. Mencken

  Ideas, White, House

• the average man does not want to be free. he simply wants to be safe.

  H. L. Mencken

  Freedom, Men, Average

• What men value in this world is not rights but privileges.

  H. L. Mencken

  Leadership, Men, Rights

  H.L. Mencken (2013). “Minority Report”, p.34, Knopf

• All government is, in its essence, organized exploitation, and in virtually all of its existing forms it is the implacable enemy of every industrious and well-disposed man.

  H. L. Mencken

  Men, Essence, Voting

  "The Constitution". Baltimore Evening Sun, August 19, 1935.

• The fact is that the average man's love of liberty is nine-tenths imaginary, exactly like his love of sense, justice and truth... Liberty is not a thing for the great masses of men. It is the exclusive possession of a small and disreputable minority, like knowledge, courage and honor. It takes a special sort of man to understand and enjoy liberty - and he is usually an outlaw in democratic societies.

  H. L. Mencken

  Love, Courage, Men

  "The Baltimore Sun" Newspaper, February 12, 1923.

• Most people want security in this world, not liberty.

  H. L. Mencken

  Freedom, People, Liberty

  H.L. Mencken (2013). “Minority Report”, p.172, Knopf

• It is the fundamental theory of all the more recent American law...that the average citizen is half-witted, and hence not to be trusted to either his own devices or his own thoughts.

  H. L. Mencken

  Freedom, Average, Law

• There is something even more valuable to civilization than wisdom, and that is character.

  H. L. Mencken

  Character, Civilization, Religion

• The average man's love of liberty is nine-tenths imaginary, exactly like his love of sense, justice and truth... It takes a special sort of man to understand and enjoy liberty - and he is usually an outlaw in democratic societies.

  H. L. Mencken

  Men, Average, Special

  Baltimore Evening Sun, February 12, 1923.

• 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.

  H. L. Mencken

  Men, Office, Political

  "Charting the Candidates '72". Book by Ronald Van Doren, p. 7, 1972.

• The American people, North and South, went into the [Civil] war as citizens of their respective states, they came out as subjects ... what they thus lost they have never got back.

  H. L. Mencken

  War, People, Liberty

• The fact is that liberty, in any true sense, is a concept that lies quite beyond the reach of the inferior man's mind. And no wonder, for genuine liberty demands of its votaries a quality he lacks completely, and that is courage. The man who loves it must be willing to fight for it; blood, said Jefferson, is its natural manure. Liberty means self-reliance, it means resolution, it means the capacity for doing without . . . the average man doesn't want to be free. He wants to be safe.

  H. L. Mencken

  Love, Courage, Lying

  Notes on Democracy pt. 3 (1926)

• Government is actually the worst failure of civilized man.

  H. L. Mencken

  Men, Liberty, Arbitrary

  H.L. Mencken (2013). “Minority Report”, p.69, Knopf

• Liberty is of small value to the lower third of humanity. They greatly prefer security, which means protection by some class above them. They are always in favor of despots who promise to feed them. The only liberty an inferior man really cherishes is the liberty to quit work, stretch out in the sun, and scratch himself.

  H. L. Mencken

  Mean, Men, Class

  H.L. Mencken (2013). “Minority Report”, p.250, Knopf

• It is the theory of all modern civilized governments that they protect and foster the liberty of the citizen; it is the practice of all of them to limit its exercise, and sometimes very narrowly.

  H. L. Mencken

  Exercise, Government, Practice

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