In America there is institutional racism that we all inherit and participate in, like breathing the air in this room - and we have to become sensitive to it.
Henry Louis Gates
Related Long ago, before I met her, she twisted her blond hair into dreadlocks and, pretty as she is, the lo... TONI MORRISON So what do you do if you are imprisoned for your race and ethnicity? The message is, Those are your ... SUN YUNG SHIN we sat there smoking cigarettes at 5 in the morning. CHARLES BUKOWSKI Pride is the problem. Everyone wants to be right so badly they overlook the "rights" of others. CARLOS WALLACE It's not the fact that some people disagree with the protests. That is as much a right as the protes... CARLOS WALLACE This world that we live in would be perfect if there were less prejudice and people who think they a... WERLEY NORTREUS I want to look happily forward. I want to be optimistic. I want to have a dream. I want to live in j... EDWIDGE DANTICAT Use your heart. Understand. Learn to see things in the now, not as they were or will be, or as ... E.J. PATTEN I am not better than you because of my religion, color, culture, education, status, wealth, etc. I a... NAJWA ZEBIAN Hiding in all the thorns, there is a yellow rose. BEN OAK We may claim to believe in God, but we don't want to believe so much that it makes us different. CRAIG GROESCHEL Racism is both overt and covert. It takes two, closely related forms: individual whites acting again... STOKELY CARMICHAEL I still had this idea that there was a whole world of marvelous golden people somewhere, as far ahea... RICHARD YATES Racist legacy laws and modern racist practices are all part of the same system, and it needs to be c... DASHANNE STOKES I like to open for a band as it brings on sort of a challenge and it makes things more interesting. ... KELLY JONES This is the 21st century, and we would all like to think racism is dead in America. Actually, that... ALVEDA KING “Love is not to be discovered but felt.It is brewing in air across universe.One needs only open ey... ANUJ SOMANY Issues can only be resolved if each person accepts accountability in the problem. CARLOS WALLACE Being present is being connected to All Things. S. KELLEY HARRELL, M. DIV. The Bible consistently and directly indicates that when we give generously, we're serving, honoring,... CRAIG GROESCHEL Race doesn't really exist for you because it has never been a barrier. Black folks don't have that c... CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE It's hard to imagine hate that I am facing from allover the world yet I am not alone with mistakes. AULIQ ICE An institution rooted in slavery cannot be the voice of our people. DASHANNE STOKES So, tomorrow, I'm leaving. And I'm not going to let that happen again with anyone else. I'm going to... STEPHEN CHBOSKY If you want to conquer the anxiety of life, live in the moment, live in the breath. AMIT RAY What I've always said is that I'm opposed to institutional racism, and I would've, had I... RAND PAUL A gap in skills and abilities reveal a golden opportunity! ABHISHEK RATNA That's why we seize the moment try to freeze it and own it, squeeze it and hold it. EMINEM The United States is like one big jail for Black people, because we're locked into a mentality and a... CHUCK D It was not only colored people who praised John, since they could not, John felt, in any case really... JAMES BALDWIN We kill each other, ... Black men are in pain, and, in some cases, black men are reacting to years o... ROBERT ATWELL There is not enough air in the room but you are breathing. There is nobody here but you are hel... JEANETTE LEBLANC Me, shooting smut in the back of a speeding van with two white girls--bald cunts, panties around the... TYLER KNIGHT Now is the only time we have, and the only time that we have any control over. RICHARD CARLSON Not," Swift said firmly, "for all the tea in China." "That expression has never made sense to m... LISA KLEYPAS The universe is so vast, so immense, we can never expect to explore it all. It is in effect, not so ... CHRISTINA ENGELA All I ever did to that apartment was hang fifty yards of yellow theatrical silk across the bedroom w... JOAN DIDION We can never make proper goodbyes. It was your last ride in a Checker cab and you had no warning. It... COLSON WHITEHEAD You don’t understand,” my dad said. “They stop you.” “Who? What are you talkin... CRISTINA HENRIQUEZ There's "good" in all things. You just have to find it. CARLOS WALLACE She was intimidating and all I could do was sit back on the couch as she paced back and forth, slowl... IN THE MAKING Each of us views life through a different lens. What we think is colored by the baggage we carry, an... LAURIE BUCHANAN, PHD Now we have one chance in some case, as in this body but in other body we will have + one because we... DEYTH BANGER That we should make it to the same place and time together again, ... and the fact that we didn't di... ANTHONY KIEDIS The U.S. should print on its money, "In Guns We Trust" and use pictures of aircraft carriers, F-16 a... BOBBY W. MILLER I, the soul called Wanderer, love you, human Ian. And that will never change, no matter what I might... STEPHENIE MEYER in America we have people from all kinds of backgrounds, all in a cluster, together, and consequentl... JOSEPH CAMPBELL Me and Gates, we laughed in the weight room today because that wasn't our 'A' game, DREW BREES It was frustrating to still be in the dark about something and be given only so little light. LAUREN LOLA The times when black women have been successful in confronting and overcoming the structural and ins... MARCIA FUDGE We kill each other, ... Black men are in pain, and, in some cases, black men are reacting to years o... ROBERT ATWELL Now is the only time we have, and the only time we have any control over. RICHARD CARLSON Destiny consist in the moments that we experienced, and not in the choices we have to do. DANIEL MELGAçO When We have Patience in our minds and Love in our hearts, Nothing appears to be impossible or unrea... PHILIP T.M The choking humidity makes amphibians of us all, in Bombay, breathing water in air; you learn to liv... GREGORY DAVID ROBERTS The farmer in us makes us do the things we do SOTONYE ANGA Despite the painful changes we have had to make, we continue to believe in the St. Louis market. And... GERARD ARPEY We didn’t think anything of it at the time, but we saw several of the bodies of the crew, space pi... CHRISTINA ENGELA There's nothing in this country that is a worse accusation - in America, if you accuse somebody ... ANDREW BREITBART Write to Say something, Say to Make something, Make to Be something. SHASHIDHAR SA Don't let any one show you the ropes to the world because usually it will be in the shape of a noose... ANDONI GARCIA This is the tip of the iceberg of a very oppressive regime that we have almost become accustomed to ... CHRIS SMITH All Americans have benefited from the dedicated service of Representative Henry Waxman. In every bat... FRANCES BEINECKE We definitely have room for improvement on our overall play this season. We need to become more cons... JOYCE COMPTON We came out in the first inning and got some breathing room. It relaxed us. (But) we're still not as... JOB GUNDERSON Nothing replaces being in the same room, face-to-face, breathing the same air and reading and feelin... PETER GUBER Here is one fact 1 minute to finish the class, 1 day to die, one day behind that fact, one day in th... DEYTH BANGER We have great confidence in the St. Louis County market. Our architects and designers have developed... DANIEL R. LEE We in America do not have government by the majority. We have government by the majority who partici... THOMAS JEFFERSON There is no room in our party for such outrageous racism. We are a party of inclusion and the only p... FRANK MACKAY The easy answer is the fact that the source of cold air this winter tended to be more in Eurasia and... DAVID PHILLIPS We have 54 requests from the St. Louis area alone. I don't even know how many firefighters there are... ERIC EVANS Convinced that we're living the whole time that we're dying. We decide to go out walking the wh... TEGAN QUIN No one remembers how you got a chance, they only remember what you did with it. STEWART STAFFORD Yes, I know that now that there is truth in beauty and beauty in truth. My nature is to be depressiv... ABIGAIL GEORGE I think that many people will intentionally overlook all of the lifeless facts about their relations... C. JOYBELL C. The mainstream media choose to flaunt story lines that make white America appear guilty of continued... ANDREW BREITBART The results are there in St. Louis. We're not gonna light up Baseball America, but if we continue se... DANNY SHEAFFER We've said it all along that we think St. Louis is a great market for a Major League Soccer team. Th... DAN COURTEMANCHE What will happen if we go to 0 day? ... Everything has been wipe out from the techno... DEYTH BANGER This is a new age in America. We must rise to the challenge, and working together, we will become a ... MARK PRYOR There is a farmer in every person. It is the farmer in you that makes you sow and reap SOTONYE ANGA We obviously would like to go all the way because a lot of us in this room have never done it. But t... ALEXANDER KHAVANOV Make every day count... Even when you think it's the worst day of your life; for you never know when... SOLANGE NICOLE When it's clear that we have a commitment to God that comes before anything else in our lives, most ... CRAIG GROESCHEL His work in changing America and giving America a chance to get back on the right track in the midst... ADIN DAVIS Vents were added to the rear bonnet in 1972 and resulted in wet engines and starting problems, and t... CHRISTINA ENGELA A new day is here! yesterday is gone! tomorrow is preparing to come! but why is today here? ERNEST AGYEMANG YEBOAH The only presence I ever truly need is the presence of God! DEDRICK D. L. PITTER It's real sensitive with 13 people in one room. We don't want anything to disturb that. AUDREY THIBODEAUX Racism in impenetrable. Staying in America means always fighting. For our own sanity and safety, we ... DARNELL LAMONT WALKER [whiteness] has no real meaning divorced from the machinery of criminal power. The new people were s... TA-NEHISI COATES 37. It is better to be single and unhappy than unhappily married. JAMES C. DOBSON Even as we live with the knowledge that each day might be our last, we don’t want to believe it. SHARON SALZBERG We have a right to life, not on it. DANIEL MELGAçO Now i know what it feels like being Ryan Bingham ARIEL SERAPHINO I’d wish it were easier to not allow other people’s pasts to create my own present. JONATHAN HARNISCH Obviously if Gates turns out missing the first game because of this, that's disappointing for everyo... DREW BREES We don't need to change our names to Bill gates to become rich in life,but if we change our thinking... DAVID ATTA (A.K.A DAVIED ATTLARS & MR DAIN) This world is a joke, and I'm in it OLIWAH GOUDEE
More Henry Louis Gates
People are afraid, and when people are afraid, when their pie is shrinking, they look for somebody t... HENRY LOUIS GATES Diversity doesn't mean black and white only. HENRY LOUIS GATES The thing about black history is that the truth is so much more complex than anything you could make... HENRY LOUIS GATES Brazil is the second blackest nation in the world. HENRY LOUIS GATES So when you do your family tree and Margaret Cho does hers, and... Wanda Sykes and John Legend... we... HENRY LOUIS GATES I give a speech to the black freshmen at Harvard each year, and I say, 'You can like Mozart and ... HENRY LOUIS GATES The sad truth is that the civil rights movement cannot be reborn until we identify the causes of bla... HENRY LOUIS GATES Cuba is like going to a whole other planet. It's so different but it's so similar to the Uni... HENRY LOUIS GATES We can revolutionize the attitude of inner city brown and black kids to learning. We need a civil ri... HENRY LOUIS GATES If Martin Luther King came back, he'd say we need another civil rights movement built on class n... HENRY LOUIS GATES You have to have a canon so the next generation can come along and explode it. HENRY LOUIS GATES What people forget is that the most radical thing about Obama is that he was the first black man in ... HENRY LOUIS GATES It's important to debunk the myths of Africa being this benighted continent civilized only when ... HENRY LOUIS GATES It's not white versus black any more, it's haves versus have-nots. Unless the black middle-c... HENRY LOUIS GATES But you see, our society is still trapped in this binary, black/white logic and that has had some ve... HENRY LOUIS GATES People don't realize what a brilliant politician Lincoln was. Looking back, we want to ascribe a... HENRY LOUIS GATES The historical basis for the gap between the black middle class and underclass shows that ending dis... HENRY LOUIS GATES I think that the roots of racism have always been economic, and I think people are desperate and sca... HENRY LOUIS GATES Patriotism is best exemplified through auto-critique. When you're willing to stand up within the... HENRY LOUIS GATES Lincoln had a tremendous capacity for personal growth - more than any other American President. HENRY LOUIS GATES Ever since I watched 'Roots,' I've dreamed of tracing my African ancestry and helping ot... HENRY LOUIS GATES In America one drop of black ancestry makes you black. HENRY LOUIS GATES All of the guests on 'Faces of America' were deeply moved by what we revealed about their an... HENRY LOUIS GATES I want to be a figure for prison reform. I think that the criminal justice system is rotten. HENRY LOUIS GATES Most black leaders, whether left, right or center, from Frederick Douglas and Martin Delaney on in t... HENRY LOUIS GATES The sad truth is that without complex business partnerships between African elites and European trad... HENRY LOUIS GATES One principle I've been fighting for that doesn't endear me to a lot of people is that black... HENRY LOUIS GATES Suffering does not necessarily ennoble you. HENRY LOUIS GATES My family and our neighbors and friends thought of Africa and its Africans as extensions of the ster... HENRY LOUIS GATES My father and I made genetics history. We were the first African-Americans and the first father and ... HENRY LOUIS GATES All historians generalize from particulars. And often, if you look at a historian's footnotes, t... HENRY LOUIS GATES There's a boom in genealogy now. With ancestry.com and other sites digitizing so many of the rec... HENRY LOUIS GATES For as long as I can remember, I have been passionately intrigued by 'Africa,' by the word i... HENRY LOUIS GATES I would like to do a series about sequencing the human genome, and also analyze more human diversity... HENRY LOUIS GATES The Right insists that anyone can escape poverty by working hard but that is simply not the case. HENRY LOUIS GATES Well, certainly one of the ironies of the success of affirmative action is that the middle class wit... HENRY LOUIS GATES We can't all work in the inner city. And, I don't even think that it is incumbent upon an Af... HENRY LOUIS GATES My father lived to be 97 and played bridge every day up to the end, so I've got a 50 percent cha... HENRY LOUIS GATES The African American's relationship to Africa has long been ambivalent, at least since the early... HENRY LOUIS GATES I first learned that there were black people living in some place called other than the United State... HENRY LOUIS GATES I rebel at the notion that I can't be part of other groups, that I can't construct identitie... HENRY LOUIS GATES You notice patterns. White guests often are mortified - that word again - when they learn their ance... HENRY LOUIS GATES So many people of color who made major contributions to American history have been trapped in the pu... HENRY LOUIS GATES Fortunately, in President Obama, the child of an African and an American, we finally have a leader w... HENRY LOUIS GATES My mom, God rest her soul - she liked nicknames. In the womb she named me Skip. There was another bl... HENRY LOUIS GATES Wherever you go in the history of America, there have been Black people making contributions, but th... HENRY LOUIS GATES No one thinks of Mexico and Peru as black. But Mexico and Peru together got 700,000 Africans in the ... HENRY LOUIS GATES I knew that there were black people in Africa, of course, unfortunately because of movies such as ... HENRY LOUIS GATES So, Mexico, Brazil, they wanted their national culture to be 'blackish' - really brown, a be... HENRY LOUIS GATES Color categories are on steroids in Latin America. I find that fascinating. It's very difficult ... HENRY LOUIS GATES Politicians will not put forth programs aimed at the problems of poor blacks while their turnout rem... HENRY LOUIS GATES I believe in the law. I think we have a great system of justice. But I do think that system of justi... HENRY LOUIS GATES Censorship is to art as lynching is to justice. HENRY LOUIS GATES JR. The precise form of an individual's activity is determined, of course, by the equipment with which h... HENRY LOUIS Most people are unable to write because they are unable to think, and they are unable to think becau... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN Science, at bottom, is really anti-intellectual. It always distrusts pure reason, and demands the pr... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN The worst government is the most moral. One composed of cynics is often very tolerant and humane. B... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN Democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey cage. HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN A celebrity is one who is known to many persons he is glad he doesn't know. HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN Adultery is the application of democracy to love HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin. HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN The cynics are right nine times out of ten. HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN There is something even more valuable to civilization than wisdom, and that is character HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN I give you Chicago. It is not London and Harvard. It is not Paris and buttermilk. It is American in ... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN A man always blames the woman who fools him. In the same way he blames the door he walks into in ... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN Who ever heard, indeed, of an autobiography that was not (interesting)? I can recall none in all the... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN No matter how happily a woman may be married, it always pleases her to discover that there is a nic... 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HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN Misogynist: A man who hates women as much as women hate one another HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN You can't kiss an oil well. HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under. HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN I believe that all government is evil, in that all government must necessarily make war on liberty, ... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN Only a government that is rich and safe can afford to be a democracy, for democracy is the most expe... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN Remorse is regret that one waited so long to do it HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN It is not materialism that is the chief curse of the world, as pastors teach, but idealism. Men get ... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN Injustice is relatively easy to bear; what stings is justice HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN There is only one honest impulse at the bottom of Puritanism, and that is the impulse to punish the ... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN Opera in English is, in the main, about as sensible as baseball in Italian. HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN Belief in our mortality, the sense that we are eventually going to crack up and be extinguished like... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN A man always remembers his first love with special tenderness, but after that he begins to bunch the... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN Socialism: nothing more than the theory that the slave is always more virtuous than his master HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN The theory seems to be that as long as a man is a failure he is one of God's children, but that as s... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN For centuries, theologians have been explaining the unknowable in terms of the-not-worth-knowing. HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN All government, of course, is against liberty. HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN It is now quite lawful for a Catholic woman to avoid pregnancy by a resort to mathematics, though sh... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN A home is not a mere transient shelter: its essence lies in the personalities of the people who live... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN The capacity of human beings to bore one another seems to be vastly greater than that of any other a... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN Love is an emotion that is based on an opinion of women that is impossible for those who have had an... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN Men have a much better time of it than women; for one thing they marry later; for another thing they... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN There are some politicians who, if their constituents were cannibals, would promise them missionarie... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN Wealth - any income that is at least one hundred dollars more a year than the income of one's wife's... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN The American people, taken one with another, constitute the most timorous, sniveling, poltroonish, i... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN War will never cease until babies begin to come into the world with larger cerebrums and smaller adr... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN The older I get the more I admire and crave competence, just simple competence, in any field from ad... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN Have you ever watched a crab on the shore crawling backward in search of the Atlantic Ocean, and mis... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN It is impossible to imagine the universe run by a wise, just and omnipotent God, but it is quite eas... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN A newspaper is a device for making the ignorant more ignorant and the crazy crazier. HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN The idea that the sole aim of punishment is to prevent crime is obviously grounded upon the theory t... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN [Rudolph Valentino was] what is commonly called for want of a better name, a gentleman. In brief, Va... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN For every problem there is a solution which is simple, clean and wrong. HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN Complete masculinity and stupidity are often indistinguishable HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN Men are sad because they have to die so soon, women are sad because they were born so long ago. HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN An individual who forces himself to accept this or that idea, or who pretends to accept this or that... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN The effort to reconcile science and religion is almost always made, not by theologians, but by scien... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN Temptation is an irresistible force at work on a movable body HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN The cosmos is a gigantic flywheel making 10,000 revolutions per minute. Man is a sick fly taking a d... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN Opera in English is, in the main, just about as sensible as baseball in Italian. HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN The fundamentalist mind, running in a single rut for fifty years, is now quite unable to comprehend ... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN A judge is a law student who marks his own examination papers. HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN Say what you want about the Ten Commandments, you must always come back to the pleasant fact that th... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN He marries best who puts it off until it is too late HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN After all, all he did was string together a lot of old, well-known quotations. HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN The common argument that crime is caused by poverty is a kind of slander on the poor HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN Theology-An effort to explain the unknowable by putting it into terms of the not worth knowing HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN Church: A place in which gentlemen who have never been to Heaven brag about it to people who will n... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN On one issue, at least, men and women agree: they both distrust women HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN The way to hold a husband is to keep him a little jealous; the way to lose him is to keep him a litt... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN When women kiss, it always reminds one of prizefighters shaking hands HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN He (the businessman) is the only man who is forever apologizing for his occupation HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN The chief knowledge that a man gets from reading books is the knowledge that very few of them are wo... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN There is a bird that knows no closed season - and if he won't come down to Texas oil stock, or one-n... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN When women kiss it always reminds me of prizefighters shaking hands HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN The value the world sets upon motives is often grossly unjust and inaccurate HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN Explanations exist; they have existed for all times, for there is always an easy solution to every h... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN Whenever you hear a man speak of his love for his country it is a sign that he expects to be paid fo... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN So few men are really worth knowing, that it seems a shameful waste to let an anthropoid prejudice s... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN A metaphysician is one who, when you remark that twice two makes four, demands to know what you mean... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN Gynecologists: perhaps the most ignorant class of men, when it comes to knowledge of women, in the c... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN The notion that artists flourish upon adversity and misunderstanding, that they are able to function... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN As the arteries grow hard, the heart grows soft. HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN It is impossible to think of a man of any actual force and originality, universally recognized as ha... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN No normal man ever fell in love after 30 when the kidneys begin to disintegrate. HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN One yearns unspeakably for a composer who gives out his pair of honest themes, and then develops the... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN I go on working for the same reason that a hen goes on laying eggs. HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN Men are the only animals who devote themselves assiduously to making one another unhappy. HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN To denounce moralizing out of hand is to pronounce a moral judgment HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN People will believe what they want to believe HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN The first kiss is stolen by the man; the last is begged by the woman. HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN The chief value of money lies in the fact that one lives in a world in which it is overestimated. HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN The truth that survives is simply the lie that is pleasantest to believe HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN The average man doesn't want to be free. He wants to be safe. HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN The difference between a moral man and a man of honor is that the latter regrets a discreditable act... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN Democracy is also a form of worship. It is the worship of Jackals by Jackasses. HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN Change is not progress HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led t... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN It is hard to believe that a man is telling the truth when you know that you would lie if you were i... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN A Sunday school is a prison in which children do penance for the evil conscience of their parents. HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN Most people want security in this world, not liberty. HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN The aim of medicine is surely not to make men virtuous; it is to safeguard and rescue them from the ... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN School days are the unhappiest in the whole span if human existence. They are full of dull, unintell... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN It is inaccurate to say that I hate everything. I am strongly in favor of common sense, common hones... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN Old age ain't no place for sissies. HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN A professional politician is a professionally dishonourable man. In order to get anywhere near high ... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN A man always blames the woman who fools him. In the same way he blames the door he walks into in the... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN Any man who, having a child or children he can't support, proceeds to have another should be sterili... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN Husbands never become good; they merely become proficient HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN It is a sin to believe evil of others, but it is seldom a mistake. HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN Economic independence is the foundation of the only sort of freedom worth a damn HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN Free speech is too dangerous to a democracy to be permitted HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN The argument that capital punishment degrades the state is moonshine, for if that were true then it ... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN It is Hell, of course, that makes priests powerful, not Heaven, for after thousands of years of so-c... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN The only really happy folk are married women and single men. HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN God is a Republican, and Santa Claus is a Democrat HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN The great secret of happiness in love is to be glad that the other fellow married her HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN Nothing is so abject and pathetic as a politician who has lost his job, save only a retired stud-hor... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN The trouble with Communism is the Communists, just as the trouble with Christianity is the Christian... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN Evangelical Christianity, as everyone knows, is founded upon hate, as the Christianity of Christ was... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN A national political campaign is better than the best circus ever heard of, with a mass baptism and ... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN Poetry has done enough when it charms, but prose must also convince HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN A fool who, after plain warning, persists in dosing himself with dangerous drugs should be free to d... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN The way for newspapers to meet the competition of radio and television is simply to get out better p... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN There is only one justification for having sinned, and that is to be glad of it HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN At the moment of the contemporary metaphysician's loftiest flight, when he is most gratefully warmed... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN To die for an idea; it is unquestionably noble. But how much nobler it would be if men died for idea... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN To wage a war for a purely moral reason is as absurd as to ravish a woman for a purely moral reason HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN It doesn't take a majority to make a rebellion; it takes only a few determined leaders and a sound c... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN Every man sees in his relatives, and especially in his cousins, a series of grotesque caricatures of... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN Suicide is belated acquiescence in the opinion of one's wife's relatives HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN The objection of the scandalmonger is not that she tells of racy doings, but that she pretends to be... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN Lying is not only excusable; it is not only innocent; it is, above all, necessary and unavoidable. W... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN I believe that no discovery of fact, however trivial, can be wholly useless to the race, and that no... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN The one permanent emotion of the inferior man is fear - fear of the unknown, the complex, the inexpl... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN He uses his sources as a drunkard uses lampposts; not to light him upon his way, but to dissimulate ... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN A man loses his sense of direction after four drinks; a woman loses hers after four kisses HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN In this world of sin and sorrow there is always something to be thankful for; as for me, I rejoice t... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN Bachelors know more about women than married men; if they didn't they'd be married too. HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN One seldom discovers a true believer that is worth knowing HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN It is only the savage, whether of the African bush or of the American gospel tent, who pretends to k... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN Every man is thoroughly happy twice in his life: just after he has met his first love, and just afte... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN The fact that a human brain of high amperage, otherwise highly efficient, may have a hole in it is s... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN You come into the world with nothing, and the purpose of your life is to make something out of nothi... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN