This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken
Democracy is the pathetic belief in the wisdom of collective ignorance.
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H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken
To believe that Russia has got rid of the evils of capitalism takes a special kind of mind. It is the same kind that believes that a Holy Roller has got rid of sin.
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H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken
No government is ever really in favor of so-called civil rights. It always tries to whittle them down. They are preserved under all governments, insofar as they survive at all, by special classes of fanatics, often highly dubious.
He who would be a leader must pay the price in self-discipline and moral restraints. This details the correction and improvement of his personal character, the checking of passions and desires and an exemplary control of one's bodily needs and desires.
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H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken
No government, of its own motion, will increase its own weakness, for that would mean to acquiesce in its own destruction... governments, whatever their pretensions otherwise, try to preserve themselves by holding the individual down ... Government itself, indeed, may be reasonably defined as a conspiracy against him. It?s one permanent aim, whatever its form, is to hobble him sufficiently to maintain itself.
Evil | Man | Pleasure | Understanding |
If you have democracy, people will vote for washing machines. They love them!
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No good lawyer ever goes to court himself.
Ability | Balance | Technology | Work |
Penny and penny laid up will be many.
Diversity | People | Understanding | Understand |
What is bred in the bone will not go out of the flesh.
Hope | People | Understanding |
There is never enough where nought is left.
Better | Change | Motives | Work | Understand |