The fact is that the average man's love of liberty is nine-tenths imaginary, exactly like his love of sense, justice and truth.
H. L. MenckenIt seems to me that society usually wins. There are, to be sure, free spirits in the world, but their freedom, in the last analysis, is not much greater than that of a canary in a cage. They may leap from perch to perch; they may bathe and guzzle at their will; they may flap their wings and sing. But they are still in the cage, and soon or late it conquers them.
H. L. MenckenThe great difficulty about keeping the Ten Commandments is that no man can keep them and be a gentleman.
H. L. MenckenNietzsche, to the end of his days, remained a Russian pastor's son, and hence two-thirds of a Puritan; he erected his war upon holiness, toward the end, into a sort of holy war.
H. L. Mencken