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.
Candor and accountability in a democracy is very important. Hypocrisy has no place.
Faith in the resurrection of Jesus says that there is a future for every human being; the cry for unending life which is a part of the person is indeed answered... God exists: that is the real message of Easter. Anyone who even begins to grasp what this means also knows what it means to be redeemed.
The madness of mobs or the insolence of soldiers, or both, when too near to each other, occasion some mischief.
Ambition and hatred are enough to bring Iraq and al Qaeda together.
Freud was way off base in considering sex the fundamental motivation. The ruling passion in men is minding each other's business.
Man only plays when in the full meaning of the word he is a man, and he is only completely a man when he plays.
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