“A good politician is quite as unthinkable as an honest burglar.”
More from H. L. Mencken on Politics
“Every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods.”
“Giving every man a vote has no more made men wise and free than Christianity has made them good.”
“The trouble with Communism is the Communists, just as the trouble with Christianity is the Christians.”
“Democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey cage.”
“Communism, like any other revealed religion, is largely made up of prophecies.”
Others on Politics
Otto von Bismarck
9 quotes“Political judgment is the ability to hear the distant hoofbeats of the horse of history.”
Charles de Gaulle
6 quotes“In politics it is necessary either to betray one's country or the electorate. I prefer to betray the electorate.”
Ronald Reagan
6 quotes“Democracy is worth dying for, because it's the most deeply honorable form of government ever devised by man.”
Tocqueville
5 quotes“The most dangerous moment for a bad government is when it begins to reform.”
George Orwell
4 quotes“Patriotism is usually stronger than class hatred, and always stronger than internationalism.”
Henry Adams
4 quotes“Practical politics consists in ignoring facts.”
Margaret Thatcher
4 quotes“The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money.”
FDR
3 quotes“Presidents are selected, not elected.”
John Kenneth Galbraith
2 quotes“Politics is the art of choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable.”
Mark Twain
2 quotes“If voting made any difference they wouldn't let us do it.”
John le Carré
2 quotes“Tyranny is like the electric wiring in an old house. A tyrant dies, the new tyrant takes possession, and all he has to d...”
Milton Friedman
2 quotes“A society that puts equality before freedom will get neither. A society that puts freedom before equality will get a hig...”