The H.L. Mencken Guide to Hezbollah Politics

Issue	What did Mencken say?
Jamil Sayyed	It is even harder for the average ape to believe that he has descended from man.
Michel Aoun	Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence.
Politicization of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon	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.
The Special Tribunal for Lebanon	Injustice is relatively easy to bear; what stings is justice.
Supporting Lebanese Government Institutions.	Platitude: an idea (a) that is admitted to be true by everyone, and (b) that is not true.
Hassan Nasrallah	The demagogue is one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots.
Nasrallah speaking to supporters only via CCTV	I never lecture, not because I am shy or a bad speaker, but simply because I detest the sort of people who go to lectures and don't want to meet them.
“Martyrdom”	To die for an idea; it is unquestionably noble. But how much nobler it would be if men died for ideas that were true!
“False Witnesses”	The penalty for laughing in a courtroom is six months in jail; if it were not for this penalty, the jury would never hear the evidence.
Nawaf Moussawi	The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
“The Zionists did it”!	The capacity of human beings to bore one another seems to be vastly greater than that of any other animal.