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H. L. Mencken Quotes about Lying

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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. Their

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. Their principal device to that end is to search out groups who pant and pine for something they can't get and to promise to give it to them. Nine times out of ten that promise is worth nothing. The tenth time is made good by looting A to satisfy B. In other words, government is a broker in pillage, and every election is sort of an advance auction sale of stolen goods.

Lying, Men, Office

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

People do not expect to find chastity in a whorehouse. Why, then, do they expect to find honesty and humanity in government, a congeries of institutions whose modus operandi consists of lying, cheating, stealing, and if need be, murdering those who resist?

Cheating, Honesty, Lying

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.

Love, Courage, Lying

Notes on Democracy pt. 3 (1926)

The truth that survives is simply the lie that is pleasantest to believe.

Truth, Lying, Believe

Deep within the heart of every evangelist lies the wreck of a car salesman.

Lying, Heart, Car

All the great enterprises of the world are run by a few smart men: their aides and associates run down by rapid stages to the level of sheer morons. Everyone knows that this is true of government, but we often forget that it is equally true of private undertakings. In the average great bank, or railroad, or other corporation the burden of management lies upon a small group. The rest are ciphers.

Running, Smart, Lying

H.L. Mencken (2013). “Minority Report”, p.121, Knopf

A home is not a mere transient shelter: its essence lies in the personalities of the people who live in it.

Happiness, Lying, Home

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

It is [a politician's] business to get and hold his job at all costs. If he can hold it by lying, he will hold it by lying; if lying peters out, he will try to hold it by embracing new truths. His ear is ever close to the ground.

Jobs, Lying, Trying

"Notes on Democracy". Book by H. L. Mencken, 1926.

The man who boasts that he habitually tells the truth is simply a man with no respect for it. It is not a thing to be thrown about loosely, like small change; it is something to be cherished and hoarded and disbursed only when absolutely necessary. The smallest atom of truth represents some man's bitter toil and agony; for every ponderable chunk of it there is a brave truth-seeker's grave upon some lonely ash-dump and a soul roasting in Hell.

Lonely, Truth, Lying

1922 Prejudices, 3rd series, ch.14.

Legend: A lie that has attained the dignity of age.

Birthday, Lying, History

Confidence: The feeling that makes one believe a man, even when one knows that one would lie in his place

Confidence, Lying, Believe

A man's women folk, whatever their outward show of respect for his merit and authority, always regard him secretly as an ass, and with something akin to pity. His most gaudy sayings and doings seldom deceive them; they see the actual man within, and know him for a shallow and pathetic fellow. In this fact, perhaps, lies one of the best proofs of feminine intelligence, or, as the common phrase makes it, feminine intuition.

Women, Lying, Intuition

H. L. Mencken (2015). “In Defense of Women: Human Sexuality”, p.6, 谷月社

One of the laudable by-products of the Freudian quackery is the discovery that lying, in most cases, is involuntary and inevitable--that the liar can no more avoid it than he can avoid blinking his eyes when a light flashes or jumping when a bomb goes off behind him.

Liars, Lying, Eye

H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.325, Vintage

The only way to success in American public life lies in flattering and kowtowing to the mob

Lying, Way, Flattering

H. L. Mencken (2009). “Prejudices: Third Series”, p.29, Cosimo, Inc.

No man of honor ever quite lives up to his code, any more than a moral man manages to avoid sin.

Lying, Men, Honor

H.L. Mencken (2013). “Minority Report”, p.26, Knopf

No sane man objects to palpable lies about him; what he objects to is damaging facts.

Lying, Men, Facts

Two simple principles lie at the bottom of the whole matter, and they may be precipitated into two rules. The first is that, when there is a choice, the milder drink is always the better-not merely the safer but the better. The second is that no really enlightened drinker ever takes a drink at a time when he has any work to do. There is, of course, more to it than this; but these are sufficient for the beginner, and even the virtuoso never outgrows them.

Lying, Drinking, Simple

The central difficulty lies in the fact that all of the sciences have made such great progress during the last century that they have got quite beyond the reach of man

Lying, Men, Progress

The real man lies in the depths of subconscious.

Real, Lying, Men

H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.453, Vintage

Lying is not only excusable; it is not only innocent; it is, above all, necessary and unavoidable. Without the ameliorations that it offers, life would become a mere syllogism and hence too metallic to be borne.

Life, Success, Lying

H. L. Mencken (1924). “Prejudices Fourth Series”

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