Coaches Hot Seat NFL Quotes of the Day – Saturday, January 21, 2017 – H. L. Mencken
Coaches Hot Seat NFL Quotes of the Day – Saturday, January 21, 2017 – H. L. Mencken
“A good politician is quite as unthinkable as an honest burglar.”
And
“A judge is a law student who marks his own examination papers.”
And
“A newspaper is a device for making the ignorant more ignorant and the crazy crazier.”
And
“A politician is an animal which can sit on a fence and yet keep both ears to the ground.”
And
“A professor must have a theory as a dog must have fleas.”
And
“A society made up of individuals who were all capable of original thought would probably be unendurable.”
And
“All government, of course, is against liberty.”
And
“All men are frauds. The only difference between them is that some admit it. I myself deny it.”
And
“Before a man speaks it is always safe to assume that he is a fool. After he speaks, it is seldom necessary to assume it.”
And
“Communism, like any other revealed religion, is largely made up of prophecies.”
And
“Conscience is the inner voice that warns us that someone might be looking.”
And
“Democracy is also a form of worship. It is the worship of Jackals by Jackasses.”
And
“Democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey cage.”
And
“Don’t overestimate the decency of the human race.”
And
“Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under.”
And
“Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.”
And
“For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.”
And
“I believe in only one thing: liberty; but I do not believe in liberty enough to want to force it upon anyone.”
And
“I believe that all government is evil, and that trying to improve it is largely a waste of time.”
And
“I believe that it is better to tell the truth than a lie. I believe it is better to be free than to be a slave. And I believe it is better to know than to be ignorant.”
And
“I go on working for the same reason that a hen goes on laying eggs.”
And
“If a politician found he had cannibals among his constituents, he would promise them missionaries for dinner.”
And
“It doesn’t take a majority to make a rebellion; it takes only a few determined leaders and a sound cause.”
And
“It is even harder for the average ape to believe that he has descended from man.”
And
“It is impossible to imagine the universe run by a wise, just and omnipotent God, but it is quite easy to imagine it run by a board of gods.”
And
“It is inaccurate to say that I hate everything. I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty, and common decency. This makes me forever ineligible for public office.”
And
“Man weeps to think that he will die so soon; woman, that she was born so long ago.”
And
“Most people are unable to write because they are unable to think, and they are unable to think because they congenitally lack the equipment to do so, just as they congenitally lack the equipment to fly over the moon.”
And
“Most people want security in this world, not liberty.”
And
“Platitude: an idea (a) that is admitted to be true by everyone, and (b) that is not true.”
And
“Puritanism. The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.”
And
“Say what you will about the ten commandments, you must always come back to the pleasant fact that there are only ten of them.”
And
“Self-respect: the secure feeling that no one, as yet, is suspicious.”
And
“Strike an average between what a woman thinks of her husband a month before she marries him and what she thinks of him a year afterward, and you will have the truth about him.”
And
“The chief value of money lies in the fact that one lives in a world in which it is overestimated.”
And
“The cynics are right nine times out of ten.”
And
“The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out… without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, intolerable.”
And
“The one permanent emotion of the inferior man is fear – fear of the unknown, the complex, the inexplicable. What he wants above everything else is safety.”
And
“The theory seems to be that as long as a man is a failure he is one of God’s children, but that as soon as he succeeds he is taken over by the Devil.”
And
“To die for an idea; it is unquestionably noble. But how much nobler it would be if men died for ideas that were true!”
And
“We must be willing to pay a price for freedom.”
And
‘When a new source of taxation is found it never means, in practice, that the old source is abandoned. It merely means that the politicians have two ways of milking the taxpayer where they had one before.”
And
“It is the dull man who is always sure, and the sure man who is always dull.”
And
“To sum up: 1. The cosmos is a gigantic fly-wheel making 10,000 revolutions a minute. 2. Man is a sick fly taking a dizzy ride on it. 3. Religion is the theory that the wheel was designed and set spinning to give him the ride.”
And
“The fact is that the average man’s love of liberty is nine-tenths imaginary, exactly like his love of sense, justice and truth. He is not actually happy when free; he is uncomfortable, a bit alarmed, and intolerably lonely. 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.”
And
“The difference between a moral man and a man of honor is that the latter regrets a discreditable act, even when it has worked and he has not been caught.”
And
“I believe in the 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.”
And
“I believe in only one thing and that thing is human liberty. If ever a man is to achieve anything like dignity, it can happen only if superior men are given absolute freedom to think what they want to think and say what they want to say. I am against any man and any organization which seeks to limit or deny that freedom. . . [and] the superior man can be sure of freedom only if it is given to all men.”
Wikipedia: H. L. Mencken
