H. L. Mencken Quotes

Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.

H. L. Mencken

• People
• Good
• Democracy

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Quotes to Explore

• I see my daft surname as a positive thing. It first dawned on me that I had a comical name when someone called me 'Fishface' on my first day at school. I've heard all the fish jokes since then, many times over.

  

  Laura Haddock
  • School
  • Day
  • Positive

• I attended the bedside of a friend who was dying in a Dublin hospital. She lived her last hours in a public ward with a television blaring out a football match, all but drowning our final conversation.

  

  Gabriel Byrne
  • Friend
  • Football
  • Dying

• If you ever meet an actor who's the child of actors, they'll never tell you that they wanted to be a star. But what I did realise early on was that I just wanted to be in that tribe.

  

  Jack Davenport
  • Star
  • Never
  • Child

• You look in my room and it looks neat enough, but if you dared to look under my bed or in my closet, oh what a mess!

  

  Tamera Mowry
  • You
  • Look
  • Bed

• I'm associated with gospel music in the minds of millions of people.

  

  Pat Boone
  • People
  • Music
  • Minds

• There's so much hate that we direct externally that we forget we have our own psychos. But that's the role of the satirist - you have to examine your own country and say, 'look!'

  

  Carl Hiaasen
  • Country
  • Hate
  • Forget

• In my state, over 17,000 households are going hungry on a regular basis.

  

  Patrick J. Kennedy
  • Going
  • Hungry
  • Over

• I think beautiful independent films are made, and I think they're as close to what theater can be because they're not loaded with all of the extra stuff. It's human, and it's more organic, but theater is very unique... It's a different connection altogether.

  

  Sam Underwood
  • Different
  • Think
  • Beautiful

• Oh, I'm quite the impulse buyer. Most of what I buy is stuff for my Jeep, 'cause it breaks down a lot.

  

  Patrick Fugit
  • Down
  • Most
  • Oh

• The two most frightening words in Washington are 'bipartisan consensus.' Bipartisan consensus is when my doctor and my lawyer agree with my wife that I need help.

  

  P. J. O'Rourke
  • Help
  • Words
  • Wife

• I think my first thought on reaching the summit- of course, I was very, very pleased to be there, naturally - but my first thought was one of a little bit of surprise. I was a little bit surprised that here I was, Ed Hillary, on top of Mt. Everest. After all, this is the ambition of most mountaineers.

  

  Edmund Hillary
  • Thought
  • Ambition
  • Surprise

• I think there is a poem out there for everyone, to be an entrance into the poetry and a relationship with it.

  

  Natasha Trethewey
  • Think
  • Relationship
  • Poetry

• I get a lot of people saying to me, 'Oh, you're the actor who plays the nutters,' and I'm not. I'm the guy who plays human beings. I understand why the characters are doing what they're doing. When you play a villain, you don't play a villain: you play a human being doing what he thinks he needs to do to get what he wants.

  

  Eddie Marsan
  • People
  • Why
  • Guy

• No change can come if those who are impacted the most by discrimination are not willing to stand up for themselves.

  

  Zainab Salbi
  • Up
  • Change
  • Stand

• It takes a little bit more mentally to figure out what I need to do to be most effective. The game is ever evolving. So you have to constantly pay attention to the change because you don't want to be left behind.

  

  D'Brickashaw Ferguson
  • Game
  • Want
  • Change

• I read all the time that people think I'm arrogant. They say I am cocky, a bad character. I had that from a young age. But when they meet me, they say, 'That image doesn't fit you.'

  

  Zlatan Ibrahimovic
  • People
  • Time
  • Character

• When people start writing there is this idea that you have to get everything right first time, every sentence has to be perfect, every paragraph has to be perfect, every chapter has to be perfect, but what you're doing is not any kind of public show, until you're ready for it.

  

  Irvine Welsh
  • People
  • Time
  • Writing

• Pure phenomenology claims to be the science of pure phenomena. This concept of the phenomenon, which was developed under various names as early as the eighteenth century without being clarified, is what we shall have to deal with first of all.

  

  Edmund Husserl
  • Science
  • Names
  • Early

• You'll see the most perfect person, and you are like, 'God, she's, like, perfect.' And then she'll tell you everything that's not perfect. Everyone has their own special set of problems - in their own minds.

  

  L'Wren Scott
  • God
  • Perfect
  • Person

• Maybe it was the challenge of flight, the opportunity to fly, the competition of summer camp and the inspiration and discipline of West Point. I think all of those things helped me to develop a dedication and inspired me to get ahead.

  

  Buzz Aldrin
  • Opportunity
  • Challenge
  • Inspiration

• I think some people are on a mission to die, and I never was.

  

  Balthazar Getty
  • People
  • Die
  • Mission

• I wish to please the people, but I want to make them cry, perhaps. There, I have said it.

  

  Anna Held
  • People
  • Wish

• I'm quite proud of growing up in New Zealand where, from quite early on in primary school, you're learning to count in Maori, Maori mythology and dances and colours and history, and I think that gives a child a really good grounding.

  

  Martin Henderson
  • Up
  • Good
  • School

• Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.

  

  H. L. Mencken
  • People
  • Good
  • Democracy