It is inaccurate to say that I hate everything. I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty, and common decency. This makes me forever ineligible for public office.
Interpretation
Mencken expresses a preference for common virtues over political ambition.
In this quote, H. L. Mencken emphasizes the conflict between personal values such as common sense and decency, and the often corrupt nature of public office. He suggests that holding onto these virtues can preclude one from engaging in politics, which often requires compromise and a departure from such ideals.
In practice
During a speech about ethics in politics.
I know a good many men of great learning-that is, men born with an extraordinary eagerness and capacity to acquire knowledge. One and all, they tell me that they can't recall learning anything of any value in school. All that schoolmasters managed to accomplish with them was to test and determine the amount of knowledge that they had already acquired independently-and not infrequently the determination was made clumsily and inaccurately.
It takes a long while for a naturally trustful person to reconcile himself to the idea that after all God will not help him
It is the theory of all modern civilized governments that they protect and foster the liberty of the citizen; it is the practice of all of them to limit its exercise, and sometimes very narrowly.
The central belief of every moron is that he is the victim of a mysterious conspiracy against his common rights and true deserts.
The cure for the evils of democracy is more democracy.
It is my conviction that no normal man ever fell in love, within the ordinary meaning of the term, after the age of thirty.
We are all as much extraordinary phenomena of nature as trees, clouds, the patterns in running water, the flickering of fire, the arrangement of the stars and the form of a galaxy.
We had been everywhere. We had really seen nothing. And I catch myself thinking today that our long journey had only defiled with a sinuous trail of slime the lovely, trustful, dreamy, enormous country that by then, in retrospect, was no more to us than a collection of dog-eared maps, ruined tour books, old tires, and her sobs in the night β every night, every night β the moment I feigned sleep.
He that has doctrinal knowledge and speculation only, without affection, never is engaged in the business of religion.
I had a strong sudden instinct that I must be alone. I didnβt want to see any people at all. I had seen so many people all my life -- I was an average mixer, but more than average in a tendency to identify myself, my ideas, my destiny, with those of all classes that came in contact with. I was always saving or being saved -- in a single morning I would go through the emotions ascribable to Wellington at Waterloo. I lived in a world of inscrutable hostiles and inalienable friends and supporters.
Bad men cannot make good citizens. A vitiated state of morals, a corrupted public conscience are incompatible with freedom.
Free press is not absolute. In this country, we say clearly if you start stirring up racial hatred, then we will put a stop to it. We might even close down your paper, because these things can only lead to a lot of riots and bloodshed.
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