"Nothing is so abject and pathetic as..." - Quote by H L Mencken
Nothing is so abject and pathetic as a politician who has lost his job, save only a retired stud-horse.
More by H L Mencken
“[C]lass consciousness is not one of our national diseases; we suffer, indeed, from its opposite-the delusion that class barriers are not real. That delusion reveals itself in many forms, some of them as beautiful as a glass eye. One is the Liberal doctrine that a prairie demagogue promoted to the United States Senate will instantly show all the sagacity of a Metternich ... another is the doctrine that a moronrun through a university and decorated with a Ph.D. will cease thereby to be a moron.”
“A man may be a fool and not know it, but not if he is married.”
“No one in this world, so far as I know - and I have searched the records for years, and employed agents to help me - has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people.”
More on Politicians
“A good politician is quite as unthinkable as an honest burglar.”
“A politician is not as narrow-minded as he forces himself to be.”
“The old adage about giving a man a fish versus teaching him how to fish has been updated by a reader: Give a man a fish and he will ask for tartar sauce and French fries! Moreover, some politician who wants his vote will declare all these things to be among his 'basic rights.'”
More on Power
“You do not get power so that you can go out and do things, you go out and do things and you will get the power”
“When we attempt to exercise power or control over someone else, we cannot avoid giving that person the very same power or control over us.”
“Public opinion is a mysterious and invisible power, to which everything must yield. There is nothing more fickle, more vague, or more powerful; yet capricious as it is, it is nevertheless much more often true, reasonable, and just, than we imagine.”