# Quote — H.L. Mencken, Minority Report

> The Jewish theory that the Goyim envy the superior ability of the Jews is not borne out by the facts. Most Goyim, in fact, deny that the Jew is superior, and point in evidence to his failure to take the first prizes: he has to be content with the seconds. No Jewish composer has ever come within miles of Bach, Beethoven and Brahms; no Jew has ever challenged the top-flight painters of the world, and no Jewish scientist has equaled Newton, Darwin, Pasteur or Mendel. In the latter bracket such apparent exception as Ehrlich, Freud and Einstein are only apparent. Ehrlich, in fact, contributed less to biochemical fact than to biochemical theory, and most of his theory was dubious. Freud was nine-tenths quack, and there is sound reason for believing that even Einstein will not hold up: in the long run his curved space may be classed with the psychosomatic bumps of Gall and Spurzheim. But whether this inferiority of the Jew is real or only a delusion, it must be manifest that it is generally accepted. The Goy does not, in fact, believe that the Jew is better than the non-Jew; the most he will admit is that the Jew is smarter at achieving worldly success. But this he ascribes to sharp practices, not to superior abilities.

- Author: [H.L. Mencken](https://www.leafyquotes.com/hl-mencken.md)
- Book: [Minority Report](https://www.leafyquotes.com/hl-mencken/minority-report.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/H._L._Mencken#Minority_Report_:_H.L._Mencken's_Notebooks_(1956)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/hl-mencken/minority-report/the-jewish-theory

## More from this book

> My old suggestion that public offices be filled by drawing lots, as a jury box is filled, was probably more intelligent than I suspected. It has been criticized on the ground that selecting a man at random would probably produce some extremely bad State governors. [...] But I incline to believe that it would be best to choose members of the Legislature quite at random. No matter how stupid they were, they could not be more stupid than the average legislator under the present system. Certainly, they'd be measurably more honest, taking one with another. Finally, there would be the great advantage that all of them had got their jobs unwillingly, and were eager, not to spin out their sessions endlessly, but to get home as soon as possible.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/hl-mencken/minority-report/my-old-suggestion.md)

Topics: [politics](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/politics.md)

> Government, like any other organism, refuses to acquiesce in its own extinction. This refusal, of course, involves the resistance to any effort to diminish its powers and prerogatives. There has been no organized effort to keep government down since Jefferson's day. Ever since then the American people have been bolstering up its powers and giving it more and more jurisdiction over their affairs. They pay for that folly in increased taxes and diminished liberties. No government as such is ever in favor of the freedom of the individual. It invariably seeks to limit that freedom, if not by overt denial, then by seeking constantly to widen its own functions.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/hl-mencken/minority-report/government-like-any.md)

Topics: [politics](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/politics.md), [power](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/power.md), [freedom](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/freedom.md)

> The kind of man who wants the government to adopt and enforce his ideas is always the kind of man whose ideas are idiotic.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/hl-mencken/minority-report/the-kind-of-man.md)

Topics: [politics](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/politics.md), [stupidity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/stupidity.md)