English: Portrait of H. L. Mencken by Carl Van Vechten. Gift, Carl Van Vechten Estate. The Library of Congress, Washington, D. C. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
“The urge to save humanity is almost always a false-face for the urge to rule it.” — H.L. Mencken
English: Adah Mencken (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
(I generally like and admire Mencken, and I know he wasn’t a fan of representative democracy, but this sounds more like an Ayn Rand quote, to me. I’d like to hear the context of this quote. Hal, you are good at coming up with source documents. Was this part of a commentary on FDR, or Hitler, or something else? Appreciate anyone’s help on this. Probably no relationship to H.L., but I liked this retouched photo of the actress. Be well and do good, friends.) — YUR
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Unclerave's Wordy Weblog 
You’re giving me a lot of credit, Unc Rave! This source seems to say the Cryp setters did justice to old H.L., retaining his original “false-face” instead of the widely misquoted “false-front,” but then stiffed him by dropping “only.” H.L. was a real wit. From the small context provided by this site, he seemed to be talking about messiahs and pious brethren, or religious “reformers.”
http://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/04/06/rule-humanity/
Awesome, hal. You are my go-to guy for these kind of things. Thanks. — YUR