The Devil's Notebook (1992)
“Politics, under a democracy, reduces itself to a mere struggle for office by flatterers of the proletariat; even when a superior man prevails at that disgusting game he must prevail at the cost of his self-respect. Not many superior men make the attempt. The average great captain of the rabble, when he is not simply a weeper over irremediable wrongs, is a hypocrite so far gone that he is unconscious of his own hypocrisy—a slimy fellow, offensive to the nose.”
1940s–present, Introduction to Nietzsche's The Antichrist
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H.L. Mencken 281
American journalist and writer 1880–1956Related quotes

“In taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy; but in passing it over, he is superior.”
Of Revenge
Essays (1625)
Variant: Certainly, in taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy; but in passing it over, he is superior; for it is a prince's part to pardon.

His lecture on leadership quoted in "Field Marshal KM Kariappa Memorial Lectures, 1995-2000", page=28

"Diagnosis of Our Moral Uneasiness", III
Power, Politics, and People (1963)
Majlisi, Bihārul Anwār, vol. 60, p. 299, no.5
Regarding Knowledge & Wisdom, Religious

1960s, Emancipation Proclamation Centennial Address (1962)
Context: When Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation it was not the act of an opportunistic politician issuing a hollow pronouncement to placate a pressure group. Our truly great presidents were tortured deep in their hearts by the race question. [... ] Lincoln’s torments are well known, his vacillations were facts. In the seething cauldron of ‘62 and ‘63 Lincoln was called the "Baboon President" in the North, and "coward", "assassin" and "savage" in the South. Yet he searched his way to the conclusions embodied in these words, "In giving freedom to the slave we assure freedom to the free, honorable alike in what we give and what we preserve." On this moral foundation he personally prepared the first draft of the Emancipation Proclamation, and to emphasize the decisiveness of his course he called his cabinet together and declared he was not seeking their advice as to its wisdom but only suggestions on subject matter. Lincoln achieved immortality because he issued the Emancipation Proclamation. His hesitation had not stayed his hand when historic necessity charted but one course. No President can be great, or even fit for office, if he attempts to accommodate to injustice to maintain his political balance.

Diogenes of Sinope, as quoted in Pearls of Thought (1882), edited by Maturin Murray Ballou, p. 22
Misattributed
Le Marquis de Pombal, p. 377
Le marquis de Pombal (1869)

Source: The Doctrine of the Mean