12 quotes
Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.
Smart Set (1910)
Liberty and democracy are eternal enemies, and every one knows it who has ever given any sober reflection to the matter.
Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.
The cure for the evils of democracy is more democracy!
Notes on Democracy (1926)
Every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods.
Democrats are always happy. Democracy is a sort of laughing gas. It will not cure anything, perhaps, but it unquestionably stops the pain.
Democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey cage.
A Mencken Chrestomathy (1949)
If x is the population of the United States and y is the degree of imbecility of the average American, then democracy is the theory that x × y is less than y.
A Mencken Chrestomathy (1949)
Civilization, in fact, grows more and more maudlin and hysterical; especially under democracy it tends to degenerate into a mere combat of crazes; the whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.
In Defense of Women (1918)
Democracy, in fact, is always inventing class distinctions, despite its theoretical abhorrence of them.
Notes on Democracy (1926)
As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.
Men in the mass never brook the destructive discussion of their fundamental beliefs, and that impatience is naturally most evident in those societies in which men in the mass are most influential. Democracy and free speech are not facets of one gem; democracy and free speech are eternal enemies.