Quotes from book
Notes on Democracy

Name: Notes on Democracy
Author: H.L. Mencken

H.L. Mencken

Notes on Democracy is a 1926 book by American journalist, satirist, cultural critic H. L. Mencken.

“The demagogue is one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots.”

H.L. Mencken book Notes on Democracy

Part 2, chapter 4 http://books.google.com/books?id=Xw-DAAAAMAAJ&q=%22The+demagogue+is+one+who+preaches+doctrines+he+knows+to+be+untrue+to+men+he+knows+to+be+idiots%22&pg=PA103#v=onepage <br class="br">1920s, Notes on Democracy (1926) <br class="br">Context: The demagogue is one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots. The demaslave is one who listens to what these idiots have to say and pretends to believe it himself.

“Public opinion, in its raw state, gushes out in the immemorial form of the mob's fear. It is piped into central factories, and there it is flavoured and coloured and put into cans.”

H.L. Mencken book Notes on Democracy

1920s
Source: Notes on Democracy (1926)

“It is [a politician's] business to get and hold his job at all costs. If he can hold it by lying, he will hold it by lying; if lying peters out, he will try to hold it by embracing new truths. His ear is ever close to the ground.”

H.L. Mencken book Notes on Democracy

Notes on Democracy (1926), Part II, p. 99
1920s