"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, all of them imaginary."

--

Source : H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.29, Vintage

H. L. Mencken

#Freedom Quotes #Safety Quotes #Political Quotes

“Nationalism will keep its venom until we succeed in creating an image of the nations of the whole world as so many provinces.”
“Jabor finally appeared at the top of the stairs, sparks of flame radiating from his body and igniting the fabric of the house around him. He caught sight of the boy, reached out his hand and stepped forward. And banged his head nicely on the low-slung attic door.”
“I had found my religion: nothing seemed more important to me than a book. I saw the library as a temple.”
“Combativeness was, I suppose, the dominant trait in my grandmother's nature. An aggressive churchgoer, she was quite without Christian feeling; the mercy of the Lord Jesus had never entered her heart. Her piety was an act of war against Protestant ascendancy. ...The teachings of the Church did not interest her, except as they were a rebuke to others ...”
“The freedmen were not really free in 1865, nor are most of their descendants really free in 1965. Slavery was but one aspect of a race and color problem that is still far from solution here, or anywhere. In America particularly, the grapes of wrath have not yet yielded all their bitter vintage.”

Source : Samuel Eliot Morison (1972). “The Oxford history of the American people”, Signet
“Most death now happens in hospitals. It's been medicalized. It happens away from where we deal with it directly. And that's a huge change. At the beginning of the 20th century most people died at home. Death was much more common.”
“What drives me is truly inspiring people to realize they can live more creative and simple lives.”
“I think with art you have to do a bit of transforming of the subject to make the art worth having.”

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