suddenly conscious
power in numbers safely
permit viciousness

Part of the Mencken Project

Taken from the line:

Not because the stoneheads, normally virtuous, are suddenly criminally insane. Nay, but because they are suddenly conscious of the power lying in their numbers—because they suddenly realize that their natural viciousness and insanity may be safely permitted to function.

In other words, the particular swinishness of a crowd is permanently resident in the majority of its members—in all those members, that is, who are naturally ignorant and vicious—perhaps 95 per cent. All studies of mob psychology are defective in that they underestimate this viciousness.

From Damn! A Book of Calumny. XX The Crowd, by HL Mencken, 1918

much thinking marked
by blowsy vacuity
disregard of facts

For the Mencken Project

Adapted from the Minority Report by HL Mencken 1956

The line reads, “… and I sometimes suspect that it may be the main cause of the blowsy vacuity which marks so much of the so-called thinking of mankind. What ails that thinking, two times out of three, is simply its disregard of large categories of essential facts …”

Blowsy?

Having a sloppy or unkempt appearance or aspect.

Vacutiy?

Lack of thought or intelligence; empty-headedness.

Put them together?

An unkempt lack of intelligence or a sloppy empty-headedness.

melodramatic
pursuit of monsters, mostly
imaginary

For the Mencken Project.

Taken from Notes on Democracy, 1927

From the line: The whole history of the country has been a history of melodramatic pursuits of horrendous monsters, most of them imaginary. It was long ago observed that the plain people, under democracy, never vote for anything, but always against something.

colossal display
of such professorial
bombast, flatulence

The Mencken Project

From the American Language, HL Mencken, 1919

Commenting on the “Reorganization of English in Secondary Schools,” compiled by James Fleming Hosic and issued by the National Bureau of Education, “Reorganization of English in Secondary Schools,” compiled by James Fleming Hosic and issued by the National Bureau of Education, Mr. Mencken writes, “The aim of this pamphlet is to rid the teaching of English, including grammar, of its accumulated formalism and ineffectiveness–to make it genuine instruction instead of a pedantic and meaningless routine. And how is this revolutionary aim set forth? By a meticulous and merciless splitting of hairs, a gigantic manufacture of classifications and sub-classifications, a colossal display of professorial bombast and flatulence. “

Rule of by people
has little support in facts
for the theory

For the Mencken Project

Taken from The Minority Report, #343, by HL Mencken, 1956

The line is, “The Theory behind representative government is that superior men – or, at all events, men not inferior to the average in ability and integrity – are chosen to manage the public business, and they carry on this work with reasonable intelligence and honesty. There is little for this theory in the know facts.”