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H. L. Mencken Quotes about Democracy

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Free speech is too dangerous to a democracy to be permitted

Free speech is too dangerous to a democracy to be permitted

Democracy, Speech, Free Speech

Liberty and democracy are eternal enemies, and every one knows it who has ever given any sober reflection to the matter.

Reflection, Enemy, Democracy

"Liberty and Democracy". Baltimore Evening Sun (April 13, 1925) as quoted in "A Second Mencken Chrestomathy: A New Selection from the Writings of America's Legendary Editor, Critic, and Wit" edited by Terry Teachout (p. 35), 1994.

Liberals have many tails and chase them all.

Freedom, Democracy, Liberty

Democracy turns upon and devours itself. Universal suffrage, in theory the palladium of our liberties, becomes the assurance of our slavery. And that slavery will grow more and more abject and ignoble as the differential birth rate, the deliberate encouragement of mendicancy and the failure of popular education produce a larger and larger mass of prehensile half-wits, and so make the demagogues more and more secure.

Encouragement, Birth Rate, Democracy

A good politician is quite as unthinkable as an honest burglar.

Freedom, Democracy, Politics

Imagine the Creator as a low comedian, and at once the world becomes explicable.

Freedom, Comedian, Democracy

If the American people really tire of democracy and want to make a trial of Fascism, I shall be the last person to object. But if that is their mood, then they had better proceed toward their aim by changing the Constitution and not by forgetting it.

People, Political, Democracy

The function of a newspaper in a democracy is to stand as a sort of chronic opposition to the reigning quacks. The minute it begins to out-whoop them it forfeits its character and becomes ridiculous.

Character, Democracy, Ridiculous

H.L. Mencken (2012). “Diary of H. L. Mencken”, p.281, Vintage

What ass first let loose the doctrine that the suffrage is a high boon and voting a noble privilege?

Voting, Democracy, Doctrine

A politician is an animal which can sit on a fence and yet keep both ears to the ground.

Freedom, Animal, Democracy

I confess I enjoy democracy immensely. It is incomparably idiotic, and hence incomparably amusing.

Democracy, Amusing, Enjoy

H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.168, Vintage

The trouble with Communism is the Communists, just as the trouble with Christianity is the Christians.

Christian, Freedom, Democracy

Democracy is only a dream: it should be put in the same category as Arcadia, Santa Claus, and Heaven.

Dream, Heaven, Democracy

H.L. Mencken (2013). “Minority Report”, p.412, Knopf

If experience teaches us anything at all, it teaches us this: that a good politician, under democracy, is quite as unthinkable as an honest burglar.

Democracy, Politics, Honest

H.L. MENCKEN (1958). “PREJUDICES A SELECTION”

Democracy the domination of unreflective and timorous men, moved in vast herds by mob conditions.

Men, Democracy, Herds

If x is the population of the United States and y is the degree of imbecility of the average American, then democracy is the theory that x times y is less than y

Average, Democracy, United States

A politician normally prospers under democracy in proportion ... as he excels in the invention of imaginary perils and imaginary defenses against them.

War, Democracy, Liberty

Democracy is grounded upon so childish a complex of fallacies that they must be protected by a rigid system of taboos, else even halfwits would argue it to pieces. Its first concern must be to penalize the free play of ideas.

Play, Ideas, Democracy

In Defense of Women, rev. ed., introduction (1922)

Capitalism under democracy has a further advantage: its enemies, even when it is attacked, are scattered and weak, and it is usually easily able to array one half of them against the other half, and thus dispose of both.

Democracies Have, Enemy, Democracy

H. L. Mencken (2013). “Notes On Democracy”, p.50, Read Books Ltd

The saddest life is that of a political aspirant under democracy. His failure is ignominious and his success is disgraceful.

Political, Democracy, Life Is

'Baltimore Evening Sun' 9 December 1929

The doctrine that the cure for the evils of democracy is more democracy is like saying that the cure of crime is more crime.

Evil, Democracy, Doctrine

Hanging one scoundrel, it appears, does not deter the next. Well, what of it? The first one is at least disposed of.

Freedom, Democracy, Doe

Truth - Something somehow discreditable to someone.

Freedom, Democracy

"A Mencken Chrestomathy". Book by H. L. Mencken, 1949.

I do not believe in democracy, but I am perfectly willing to admit that it provides the only really amusing form of government ever endured by mankind.

Believe, Government, Democracy

H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.8, Vintage

[T]here is only one sound argument for democracy, and that is the argument that it is a crime for any man to hold himself out as better than other men, and, above all, a most heinous offense for him to prove it.

Men, Democracy, Sound

H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.163, Vintage

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