… is from page 242 of what is perhaps the most indispensable volume on my bookshelves, A Mencken Chrestomathy; Mencken is here writing about T.R. Roosevelt – the paragon of a modern politician:
What ailed him was the fact that his lust for glory, when it came to a struggle, was always vastly more powerful than his lust for the eternal verities. Tempted sufficiently, he would sacrifice anything and everything to get applause.
