A politician normally prospers under democracy in proportion ... as he excels in the invention of imaginary perils and imaginary defenses against them.
Interpretation
Politicians thrive in democracies by creating threats and false solutions.
H. L. Mencken suggests that politicians often find success in democratic systems by fabricating dangers that do not truly exist, alongside the proposed solutions to confront these imagined crises. This highlights how manipulation and rhetoric can be used to gain power and influence, feeding on fear and anxiety within the populace.
In practice
During a campaign rally, a candidate could reference this quote to discuss their opponent's use of fear tactics.
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.
But if Russia is to be part of this larger zone of peace it cannot bring into it its imperial baggage. It cannot bring into it a policy of genocide against the Chechens, and cannot kill journalists, and it cannot repress the mass media.
You just don't, in the 21st century, behave in 19th-century fashion by invading another country on completely trumped up pre-text.
History furnishes to politics all the arguments that it needs, for the chosen cause.
The Prime Minister has an absolute genius for putting flamboyant labels on empty luggage.
My fellow Americans, all of us in this grand hall and everybody watching at home, when we vote in this election, we'll be deciding what kind of country we want to live in. If you want a winner-take-all, you're-on-your-own society, you should support the Republican ticket. But if you want a country of shared opportunities and shared responsibility, a we're-all-in-this-together society, you should vote for Barack Obama and Joe Biden.
Excessive taxation . . . will carry reason & reflection to every man's door, and particularly in the hour of election.
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