Democracy is the art of running the circus from the monkey cage.
The natural tendency of every government is to grow steadily worse
The crowd is always with the prosecution.
The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.
The Gettysburg speech is poetry, not logic. Union fought against self-determination; Confederates fought for the right to govern themselves
Off goes the head of the king and tyranny gives way to freedom. Then the face of freedom hardens and by and by it is the old face of tyranny
A good politician, under democracy, is quite as unthinkable as an honest burglar.
I propose we allow citizens to pummel, cowhide, kick, gouge, wound, bruise, maim, burn, club, bastinado, flay, or lynch gov't jobholders
Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.
All I ask is equal freedom. When it is denied, as it always is, I take it anyhow
If FDR was convinced cannibalism would get him votes, he would begin fattening a missionary in the White House yard come Wednesday
It is a politician's business to get and hold his job at all costs.
History deals mainly with captains and kings, gods and prophets, exploiters and despoilers, not with useful men.
Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under.
If, after I depart this vale, you remember me and have thought to please my ghost, forgive some sinner and wink your eye at some homely girl.
(Via @HLMenckenBot)
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