Bayard vs. Lionheart, The Evening Sun, Baltimore (26 July 1920), newspapers.com/clip https://www.newspapers.com/clip/21831908/hl_mencken_article_26_jul_1920_the/
1920s
Context: All of us, if we are of reflective habit, like and admire men whose fundamental beliefs differ radically from our own. But when a candidate for public office faces the voters he does not face men of sense; he faces a mob of men whose chief distinguishing mark is the fact that they are quite incapable of weighing ideas, or even of comprehending any save the most elemental — men whose whole thinking is done in terms of emotion, and whose dominant emotion is dread of what they cannot understand. So confronted, the candidate must either bark with the pack or count himself lost. … All the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre — the man who can most adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum.
The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. 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.
“When the Father would give men the light of the knowledge of His glory, how does He proceed? To what does He turn men's gaze? Not to His mighty works; not to creative or providential wonders; not to geological or astronomical facts; not to the data on which Paley and Bell and other admirable writers build up their argument from design; not to the still greater wonder of mind, but to " the face of Jesus Christ," that face that was more marred than any man's; that endured the ruffian blows; down which the blood drops trickled; that looked down on a mocking crowd from an ignominious cross.”
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 70.
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
John Hall 20
Presbyterian pastor from Northern Ireland in New York, died… 1829–1898Related quotes
"As Kingfishers Catch Fire, Dragonflies Draw Flame" (undated poem, c. March - April 1877)
Cited in: Carol A. Dingle (2000) Memorable Quotations: Philosophers of Western Civilization. p. 21
Source: Meditations on the Cross (1996), Back to the Cross, p. 3
Source: Break-Out from the Crystal Palace (1974), p. 108, note
At Endy Kenny on 27 June 2013 http://www.kildarestreet.com/sendebates/?id=2013-06-27a.134#g174