From the Wanniski website:

Henry Louis Mencken (1880-1956)


No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people.

Freedom of press is limited to those who own one.

Those who can -- do. Those who can't -- teach.

Imagine the Creator as a low comedian, and at once the world becomes explicable.

Nature abhors a moron.

Say what you will about the Ten Commandments, you must always come back to the pleasant fact that there are only ten of them.

Marriage is a wonderful institution, but who would want to live in an institution.

Theology is the effort to explain the unknowable in terms of the not worth knowing.

Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under.

Hanging one scoundrel, it appears, does not deter the next. Well, what of it? The first one is at least disposed of.

Injustice is relatively easy to bear; what stings is justice.

It is hard to believe that a man is telling the truth when you know that you would lie if you were in his place.

Capitalism undoubtedly has certain boils and blotches upon it, but has it as many as government? Has it as many as marriage? Has it as many as religion? I doubt it. It is the only basic institution of modern man that shows any genuine health and vigor.

Jury - A group of 12 people, who, having lied to the judge about their health, hearing, and business engagements, have failed to fool him.

...the great artists of the world are never Puritans, and seldom respectable. No virtuous man--that is, virtuous in the Y.M.C.A. sense--has ever painted a picture worth looking at, or written a symphony worth hearing, or a book worth reading...

The trouble with Communism is the Communists, just as the trouble with Christianity is the Christians.

The cosmos is a gigantic flywheel making 10,000 revolutions per minute. Man is a sick fly taking a dizzy ride on it.

Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable.

A man full of faith is simply one who has lost (or never had) the capacity for clear and realistic thought. He is not a mere ass; he is actually ill. Worse, he is incurable.

In this world of sin and sorrow there is always something to be thankful for. As for me, I rejoice that I am not a Republican.

Remorse--Regret that one waited so long to do it.

...school teachers, taking them by and large, are probably the most ignorant and stupid class of men in the whole group of menial workers.

Democracy is also a form of worship. It is the worship of Jackals by Jackasses.

One seldom discovers a true believer that is worth knowing.

Suppose two-thirds of the members of the national House of Representatives were dumped into the Washington garbage incinerator tomorrow, what would we lose to offset our gain of their salaries and the salaries of their parasites?

We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart.

Conscience is the inner voice that warns us somebody is looking.

A poet more than thirty years old is simply an overgrown child.

A man may be a fool and not know it -- but not if he is married.

Truth would quickly cease to become stranger than fiction, once we got as used to it.

Democracy is the art of running the circus from the monkey cage.

The basic fact about human existence is not that it is a tragedy, but that it is a bore.

John Fund on the Trail

"High Taxes Wither Away
Former communist countries lead the way in abandoning progressivity."

Don't hold your breath, but an interesting story.