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.
A life truly lived constantly burns away veils of illusion, burns away what is no longer relevant, gradually reveals our essence, until, at last, we are strong enough to stand in our naked truth.
A large section of the intelligentsia seems wholly devoid of intelligence.
When I was a kid in Ireland, there were not very many black people. I was very much like the strange brown thing, intriguing and cute. I didn't experience racism there. The first time I did was in London. It was that moment that you realize you're black. A kind of lifting of the veil.
Birth, death, and suffering all bring us to the very edge of what our minds can understand.
It is only at the first encounter that a face makes its full impression on us.
Men and women will retain their sex in heaven
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