H. L. Mencken Quotes

One might rationally argue that individual human beings should be free choose what moral behavior they approve of, and which they don't, subject to the constraints of the law.

Government cannot be your parent.

I believe in human rights for everyone, and none of us is qualified to judge each other and that none of us should therefore have that authority.

As the old saying goes, 'money is power' and the more money the government takes, the more power it has over individuals.

Give me a country where it is the most natural thing in the world for a government that does not understand you to let you alone.

For those who believe in God, most of the big questions are answered. But for those of us who can't readily accept the God formula, the big answers don't remain stonewritten. We adjust to new conditions and discoveries. We are pliable. Love need not be a command nor faith a dictum. I am my own god. We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church, state and our educational system. We are here to drink beer. We are here to kill war. We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us.

Government seems to operate on the principle that if even one individual is incapable of using his freedom competently, no one can be allowed to be free.

Big government makes small citizens.

Was the government to prescribe to us our medicine and diet, our bodies would be in such keeping as our souls are now.

When I meet a government which says to me, "Your money or your life," why should I be in haste to give it my money?

I think it's a scary thing for a lot of people to think of the government not being involved in their lives, particularly single women.

No: until I want the protection of Massachusetts to be extended to me in some distant Southern port, where my liberty is endangered, or until I am bent solely on building up an estate at home by peaceful enterprise, I can afford to refuse allegiance to Massachusetts, and her right to my property and life. It costs me less in every sense to incur the penalty of disobedience to the State than it would to obey. I should feel as if I were worth less in that case.

I deny the right of Congress to force a slaveholding State upon an unwilling people. I deny their right to force a free State upon an unwilling people. I deny their right to force a good thing upon a people who are unwilling to receive it. The great principle is the right of every community to judge and decide for itself, whether a thing is right or wrong, whether it would be good or evil for them to adopt it; and the right of free action, the right of free thought, the right of free judgment upon the question is dearer to every true American than any other under a free government.

Government prohibitions do always more mischief than had been calculated; and it is not without much hesitation that a statesman should hazard to regulate the concerns of individuals, as if he could do it better than themselves.

I have made no secret, either privately or publicly, of any sense of outrage over officially enforced military and war service. I regard it as a duty of conscience to fight against such barbarous enslavement of the individual with every means available.

I preume there are far too many abortions performed in this country. And I also believe that at the end of the day, as much as I might disapprove, none of them are really any of my business.

My objection to war was not that I had to kill somebody or be killed senselessly, that hardly mattered. What I objected to was to be denied the right to sit in a small room and starve and drink cheap wine and go crazy in my own way and at my own leisure.

He [Calvin Coolidge] is the first president to discover that what the American people want is to be left alone.

Liberty is always freedom from the government.

Government should allow persons to engage in whatever conduct they want to, no matter how deviant or abnormal it may be, so long as (a) they know what they are doing, (b) they consent to it, and (c) no one - at least no one other than the participants - is harmed by it.

We need to surrender our attachments to government in every aspect of life. We need to give up our dependencies on the state, materially and spiritually. We should not look to the state to provide us financially or psychologically. Let us give up our longing for welfare, our love of war, and our desire to see the government control and shape our fellow citizens.

I really didn't know much about the Libertarians. I knew they were for less government and more individual freedom. I liked that.

Big-government liberals don't like people with a sense of independence because independent people don't need big government.

When people become frightened, they look for things of real value. They will go to monetary metals, gold and silver, and they will buy other things, such as buying property. But no matter what we have, whether we have our gold coins or we have our property, if we have an authoritarian government, that is our greatest threat. So, I would like to think that there is no perfect protection, other than shrinking the size and scope and power of government, so that we can be left alone and take care of ourselves.

There is no question that if one were to ask whether we Americans are moving towards more liberty or more government control over our lives, the answer would unambiguously be the latter - more government control over our lives. We might have reached a point where the trend is irreversible and that is a true tragedy for if liberty is lost in America, it will be lost for all times and all places.