H. L. Mencken Quotes

Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people.

Our real disease ... is democracy.

I’m not allergic to democracy. The only advice I have is let’s give it a different name and keep doing it.

There is an idea of democracy produced by one-sided thinking.

Democracy is an abuse of statistics.

The idea of democracy has been stripped of it moral imperatives and come to denote hollowness and hypocrisy.

Democracy is nothing but the Tyranny of Majorities, the most abominable tyranny of all, for it is not based on the authority of a religion, not upon the nobility of a race, not on the merits of talents and of riches. It merely rests upon numbers and hides behind the name of the people.

Democracy does not race, it reaches the finish slowly but surely.

The great thing about democracy is that it gives every voter a chance to do something stupid.

As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.

The function of a parliamentary democracy, under universal suffrage, historically considered, is to expose wealth-privilege to the attacks of the people.

... a cure for the evils of universal democracy.

Democracy is a value in itself. It doesn't have to be defended [justified] any more than freedom has to be defended.

The method of democracy is to bring ... conflicts out into the open where their special claims can be seen and appraised, where they can be discussed and judged.

The great postulate of our democracy is confidence in the common sense of the people and in their maturity of judgment, even on great issues—once they know the facts.

American democracy must be a failure because it places the supreme authority in the hands of the most ignorant part of society.

Under universal suffrage the elected are those who know best how to take in the masses. The minority, which may happen to be the half minus one, is sacrificed.

The essential objection to democracy is that, with few exceptions, it imposes degrading acts and attitudes upon the men responsible for the welfare and dignity of the state.

Democracy is ... a form of religion; it is the worship of jackals by jackasses.

In the United States, where the numerical majority have long been in full possession of collective despotism, they would probably be as unwilling to part with it as a single despot or an aristocracy.

Above all, democracy means pluralism.

A democracy is the name of a government of those who are ruling for their own advantage, in opposition to the rich, or to any specific people.

Democracy becomes a government of bullies tempered by editors

A true democracy has never existed, and never will exist. It is against natural order that the great number should govern and that the few should be governed.

Democracy, in a word, is meant to be an aristocracy which has broadened into a universal aristocracy.