The highfalutin aims of democracy, whether real or imaginary, are always assumed to be identical with its achievements. This, of course, is sheer hallucination. Not one of those aims, not even the aim of giving every adult a vote, has been realized. It has no more made men wise and free than Christianity has made them good.
More from H. L. Mencken
Why assume so glibly that the God who presumably created the universe is still running it? It is certainly perfectly conceivable that He may have finished it a…
Permalink to quote #86 Science, at bottom, is really anti-intellectual. It always distrusts pure reason, and demands the production of objective fact.
Permalink to quote #88 The more noisy Negro leaders, by depicting all whites as natural and implacable enemies to their race, have done it a great disservice. Large numbers of whites…
Permalink to quote #85