“The demagogue is one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots.”
More from H. L. Mencken on Truth
“When somebody says it’s not about the money, it’s about the money.”
“Truth would quickly cease to be stranger than fiction, once we got as used to it.”
“Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public.”
“Legend: A lie that has attained the dignity of age.”
“It is hard to believe that a man is telling the truth when you know that you would lie if you were in his place.”
Others on Truth
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
11 quotes“Any truth is better than indefinite doubt.”
Cervantes
8 quotes“Facts are the enemy of truth.”
Mark Twain
8 quotes“I have a higher and grander standard of principle than George Washington. He could not lie; I can, but I won't.”
Malcolm X
7 quotes“You're not to be so blind with patriotism that you can't face reality. Wrong is wrong, no matter who does it or says it.”
Terry Pratchett
7 quotes“Little crimes breed big crimes. You smile at little crimes and then big crimes blow your head off.”
Aesop
7 quotes“No one believes a liar even when he tells the truth”
Agatha Christie
7 quotes“The innocent must not suffer.”
Patrick Rothfuss
7 quotes“...nothing in the world is harder than convincing someone of an unfamiliar truth.”
George Orwell
6 quotes“Progress is not an illusion; it happens, but it is slow and invariably disappointing.”
Frederick Douglass
6 quotes“America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future.”
Martin Luther King
6 quotes“In the end, what will hurt us the most is not the words of our enemies but the silence of our friends.”
Barbara Kingsolver
6 quotes“The urge to lie is produced by the contradictions in our lives. We are made to declare love for our country, while it tr...”