"The saddest life is that of a..." - Quote by H L Mencken
The saddest life is that of a political aspirant under democracy. His failure is ignominious and his success is disgraceful.
More by H L Mencken
“The average schoolmaster is and always must be essentially an ass, for how can one imagine an intelligent man engaging in so puerile an avocation.”
“A poet more than thirty years old is simply an overgrown child.”
“To the man with an ear for verbal delicacies- the man who searches painfully for the perfect word, and puts the way of saying a thing above the thing said - there is in writing the constant joy of sudden discovery, of happy accident.”
More on Politics
“If elected I shall be thankful; if not, it will be all the same.”
“Die-hard conservatives thought that if I couldn't get everything I asked for, I should jump off the cliff with the flag flying-go down in flames. No, if I can get 70 or 80 percent of what it is I'm trying to get ... I'll take that and then continue to try to get the rest in the future.”
“Politics, as the word is commonly understood, are nothing but corruptions.”
More on Democracy
“A democracy exists whenever those who are free and are not well-off, being in the majority, are in sovereign control of government, an oligarchy when control lies with the rich and better-born, these being few.”
“The mass of the citizens is the safest depositary of their own rights.”
“The true democrat is he who with purely nonviolent means defends his liberty and, therefore, his country's and ultimately that of the whole of mankind.”