H. L. Mencken Quotes

I think I have a right to live my life the way I like.

I believe in the America people's ability to govern themselves. If government would just get out of the way and allow them to lead their lives as they choose, they will succeed.

I'm for absolute autonomy of the individual, and an adult, competent woman has absolute autonomy. It's her choice.

Liberty is the most jealous and exacting mistress that can beguile the brain and soul of man.

Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign. In the part which merely concerns himself, his independence is of right, absolute.

In democracies the people seem to act as they please.

My freedom is more important than your good idea.

The essence of freedom is that each of us shares in the shaping of his own destiny.

I believe everybody got the right to live their own life the way they want to.

We shouldn't be fearful of freedom, we shouldn't be fearful of individual liberty.

Everybody has their own free choice to do what they want.

Individual liberty depends upon keeping government under control.

The liberty of a people consists in being governed by laws which they have made themselves, under whatsoever form it be of government; the liberty of a private man, in being master of his own time and actions, as far as may consist with the laws of God and of his country.

I am for . . . each individual doing just as he chooses in all matters which concern nobody else.

For what is liberty but the unhampered translation of will into act?

Whoever will be free must make himself free. Freedom is no fairy gift to fall into a man's lap. What is freedom? To have the will to be responsible for one's self.

I discovered freedom for the first time in England.

Freedom is control in your own life.

You have to make your own decisions. That's what the freedom in America is all about.

Ultimately, I'm about liberty and I think you have to defend it.

Is any man free except the one who can pass his life as he pleases?

In England, your life is your life.

To become self-aware, people must be allowed to hear a plurality of opinions and then make up their own minds. They must be allowed to say, write and publish whatever they want. Freedom of expression is the most basic, but fundamental, right. Without it, human beings are reduced to automatons.

I believe, basically, that individual freedom is very important.

I own my own time.