Home / Quotes / Quote by H. L. Mencken

Quote by H. L. Mencken

“I believe there is a limit beyond which free speech cannot go, but it's a limit that's very seldom mentioned. It's the point where free speech begins to collide with the right to privacy. I don't think there are any other conditions to free speech. I've got a right to say and believe anything I please, but I haven't got a right to press it on anybody else. .... Nobody's got a right to be a nuisance to his neighbors.”

Quote by H. L. Mencken

Author

H. L. Mencken was an American journalist, essayist, satirist, cultural critic, and scholar of American English. Born on September 12, 1880, and passing away on January 29, 1956, Mencken is renowned for his significant contributions to American culture and language, particularly through his satirical essays and critical analyses of the American establishment. more

You May Also Like

“No one ever heard of the truth being enforced by law. When the secular is called in to sustain an idea, whether new or old, it is always a bad idea, and not infrequently it is downright idiotic.”

Ideas Truth Law Heard Truth Is Secular Bad Ideas Idiotic Free Thought

Book:Minority Report

Source: Minority Report

“Liberty ... was a two-headed boon. There was first, the liberty of the people as a whole to determine the forms of their own government, to levy their own taxes, and to make their own laws.... There was second, the liberty of the individual man to live his own life, within the limits of decency and decorum, as he pleased -- freedom from the despotism of the majority.”

Source: Alexander Hamilton: Lapham's Quarterly - Special Issue

“The art of politics, under democracy, is simply the art of ringing it. Two branches reveal themselves. There is the art of the demagogue, and there is the art of what may be called, by a shot-gun marriage of Latin and Greek, the demaslave. They are complementary, and both of them are degrading to their practitioners. The demagogue is one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots. The demaslave is one who listens to what these idiots have to say and then pretends that he believes it himself.”

Knows Men Believe May Art Two Democracy Gun Shots Doctrine Idiot Greek Branches Latin Untrue Degrading Complementary Latin And Greek

Author:H. L. Mencken

“The common notion that free speech prevails in the United States always makes me laugh.”

States United Common United States Laughing Speech Notion Free Speech Make Me Laugh

Book:Diary of H. L. Mencken

Source: Diary of H. L. Mencken

“Government, in its very essence, is opposed to all increase in knowledge. Its tendency is always towards permanence and against change...[T]he progress of humanity, far from being the result of government, has been made entirely without its aid and in the face if its constant and bitter opposition.”

Ifs Has Beens Made Government Faces Humanity Results Progress Essence Increase Constant Aids Tendencies Bitter Opposition Permanence

Author:H. L. Mencken

“An altruist is one who would be sincerely sorry to see his neighbor's children devoured by wolves.”

Children Would Be Sorry Neighbor Altruism Sincerely

Author:H. L. Mencken

“Citizenship in New York is now worth no more than citizenship in Arkansas, for it is open to any applicant from the marshes of Bessarabia, and, still worse, to any applicant from Arkansas.”

Stills New York Citizenship Arkansas Marshes

Book:Prejudices Fourth Series

Source: Prejudices Fourth Series

“The pedant and the priest have always been the most expert of logicians - and the most diligent disseminators of nonsense and worse.”

Logic Experts Nonsense Priests Diligent Pedants

Author:H. L. Mencken

“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 Crime Doctrine Cures

Author:H. L. Mencken

“To be happy one must be (a) well fed, unhounded by sordid cares, at ease in Zion, (b) full of a comfortable feeling of superiority to the masses of one's fellow men, and (c) delicately and unceasingly amused according to one's taste. It is my contention that, if this definition be accepted, there is no country in the world wherein a man constituted as I am - a man of my peculiar weakness, vanities, appetites, and aversions - can be so happy as he can be in the United States.”