A Quote by H. L. Mencken

Here is tragedy - and here is America. For the curse of the country, as well of all democracies, is precisely the fact that it treats its best men as enemies. The aim of our society, if it may be said to have an aim, is to iron them out. The ideal American, in the public sense, is a respectable vacuum.

H. L. Mencken

Quote Topics

Aim America American Best Country Curse Enemies Fact Ideal Iron May Men Our Our Society Out Precisely Public Respectable Said Sense Society Them Tragedy Treats Vacuum Well

Quote Author

H. L. Mencken
American - Writer
September 12, 1880 - January 29, 1956

Well, marriage is a very important part of our culture and our society. If we want to have a hopeful and decent society, we ought to aim for the ideal.

Karl Rove

Very often when we aim at the best, or what we may think is the best for our children, we aim really at lesser things, such as getting into a certain college.

Michael Sandel

The aims of these three groups are entirely irreconcilable. The aim of the High is to remain where they are. The aim of the Middle is to change places with the High. The aim of the Low, when they have an aim-for it is an abiding characteristic of the Low that they are too much crushed by drudgery to be more than intermittently conscious of anything outside their daily lives -is to abolish all distinctions and create a society in which all men shall be equal.

George Orwell

I propose not our enemies as an example for our general imitation, yet, as their navy is the best regulated of any in the world, we must, in some degree, imitate them and aim at such farther improvement as may one day make ours vie with - and exceed - theirs.

John Paul Jones

Don't fall victim to what I call the ready-aim-aim-aim-aim syndrome. You must be willing to fire.

George S. Patton

Fail your way forward. Recognize that Ready, fire, aim is superior to ready, aim, aim, aim. Straightforward trial and error produces better results than endless vacillating. If you're afraid to make decisions and act on them in the face of ambiguity and uncertainty, get a job. Failure's lessons are essential to success.

Steve Pavlina

Be willing to make decisions. That's the most important quality in a good leader. Don't fall victim to what I call the 'ready-aim-aim-aim-aim syndrome'. You must be willing to fire.

T. Boone Pickens

I think we got off the track, as many societies do, who follow successfully one aim, and yet are not capable of seeing at what point the pursuit of this aim prevents them from following a more total aim. That is to say, they get into a blind alley.

Erich Fromm

There are a lot of distractions in London, which is the downside to things, for a lot of young footballers as well, and my aim is to beat that. I don't want to get distracted by anything, my aim is to concentrate on football and do the best I can.

Yannick Bolasie

the ultimate aim of government is not to rule, or restrain by fear, nor to exact obedience, but to free every man from fear that he may live in all possible security... In fact the true aim of government is liberty.

Baruch Spinoza

There are only shades of gray. Black and white are nothing more than lofty ideals in our minds, the standards by which we try to judge things, and map out our place in the world in relevance to them. Good and evil, in their purest form, are as intangible and forever beyond our ability to hold in our hand as any Fae illusion. We can only aim at them, aspire to them, and hope not to get so lost in the shadows that we can no longer aim for the light.

Karen Marie Moning

The modern world is reversing the old virtues of authority. They aimed deliberately to make men unworldly. They did not aim to found society on a full use of the earth's resources; they did not aim to use the whole nature of man; they did not intend him to think out the full expression of his desires. Democracy is a turning point upon those ideals in a pursuit, at first unconsciously, of the richest life that men can devise for themselves.

Walter Lippmann

I have an aim - I have a clear aim in my mind, and the aim is that I do not like what I see in Indian politics; it is something that is inside my heart.

Rahul Gandhi

Public policy is designed by spin doctors who aim to keep our heads below the water. The public good is not a consideration, and their self-serving agendas prevail over common sense.

Marilyn Ferguson

It is dangerous to be an American Negro male. America has never wanted its Negroes to be men, and does not, generally, treat them as men. It treats them as mascots, pets, or things.