Saturday, April 26, 2008

Mencken Quote

The central belief of every moron is that he is the victim of a mysterious conspiracy against his common rights and true deserts. He ascribes all his failure to get on in the world, all of his congenital incapacity and damfoolishness, to the machinations of werewolves assembled in Wall Street, or some other such den of infamy. If these villains could be put down, he holds, he would at once become rich, powerful and eminent. Nine politicians out of every ten, of whatever party, live and have their being by promising to perform this putting down. In brief, they are knaves who maintain themselves by preying on the idiotic vanities and pathetic hopes of half-wits.

– H. L. Mencken, _Baltimore Evening Sun_, June 15, 1936

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

It is beyond belief that this was written 72 years ago and that it is so spot on today. In our society every one thinks they are a victim of the rich. When in fact, they don't really even know who the "rich" really are.