Quote #82
Equality before the law is probably forever inattainable. It is a noble ideal, but it can never be realized, for what men value in this world is not rights but privileges.
More from H. L. Mencken
- God is the immemorial refuge of the incompetent, the helpless, the miserable. They find not only sanctuary in His arms, but also a kind of …
- There are people who read too much: the bibliobibuli. I know some who are constantly drunk on books, as other men are drunk on whiskey or r…
- No government is ever really in favor of so-called civil rights. It always tries to whittle them down. They are preserved under all governm…
- It is impossible to imagine the universe run by a wise, just and omnipotent God, but it is quite easy to imagine it run by a board of gods.…
- Human life is basically a comedy. Even its tragedies often seem comic to the spectator, and not infrequently they actually have comic touch…
- The more noisy Negro leaders, by depicting all whites as natural and implacable enemies to their race, have done it a great disservice. Lar…
- My guess is that well over eighty per cent of the human race goes through life without ever having a single original thought. That is to sa…
- Why assume so glibly that the God who presumably created the universe is still running it? It is certainly perfectly conceivable that He ma…