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Marriage is a wonderful institution, but who would want to live in an institution.


H. L. Mencken

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Marriage is a wonderful institution, but who would want to live in an institution?
H. L. MENCKEN Marriage is a wonderful institution... but who wants to live in an institution?
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN Marriage is a wonderful institution, but who wants to live in an institution?
GROUCHO MARX Marriage is a wonderful institution...but who wants to live in an institution?
GROUCHO MARX Marriage is an institution, but who wants to live in an institution?
SOURCE UNKNOWN Marriage is a great institution, but who wants to live in an institution?
KATHARINE HEPBURN Marriage is a great institution, but who wants to live in an institution?
MARX GROUCHO Marriage is a fine institution, but I'm not ready for an institution.
MAE WEST Marriage is a great institution, but I'm not ready for an institution.
MAE WEST Marriage is a great institution, but I'm not ready for an institution yet.
MAE WEST Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence. -H. L. Mencken.
H. L. MENCKEN Marriage is a great institution, but I'm not ready for an institution.
MAE WEST As the arteries grow hard, the heart grows soft. -H. L. Mencken.
H. L. MENCKEN As the arteries grow hard, the heart grows soft. thanks to Alan Bennett -H. L. Mencken.
H. L. MENCKEN Any man," she muttered, "who wanted to marry into the Hathaway family after this should be shut away...
LISA KLEYPAS Marriage is a great institution.
ELIZABETH TAYLOR Marriage is an institution and that's where a couple finish up.
LES DAWSON Any man,” she muttered, “who wanted to marry into the Hathaway family after this should be shut ...
LISA KLEYPAS It is statistically proven that the strongest institution that guarantees procreation and continuity...
ALVEDA KING While I believe in marriage as an institution, I am also petrified of it.
SHAHID KAPOOR Can't you see that marriage is a fundamentally different institution?
TOM MCCLINTOCK I love marriage. I think it's a wonderful institution and it's the most important decision y...
ISLA FISHER A lot of people seem to want to make the institution of marriage substitute for a real relationship.
SUSAN FALUDI Marriage is a great institution. No family should be without it.
MAE WEST I love the institution of marriage, and I love my marriage.
KYLE CHANDLER Marriage is the only institution in life where the word familiarity becomes familiar.
DAVID ATTA (A.K.A DAVIED ATTLARS & MR DAIN) Love is blind and marriage is the institution for the blind.
LEWIS GRIZZARD Love is blind and marriage is the institution for the blind.
JAMES GRAHAM Civil union is less than marriage. Marriage is a sacred and valued institution and ought to be affor...
JAMES MCGREEVEY The 'institution of marriage' is being threatened - by people getting married? Huh?
CHRISTINA ENGELA The whole institution of marriage itself really has no place in a progressive society.
DOUG STANHOPE Chanel is an institution, and you have to treat an institution like a whore – and then you get som...
KARL LAGERFELD Marriage as an institution developed from rape as a practice. Rape, originally defined as abduction,...
ANDREA DWORKIN Most women would each be left with fewer dreams or without a dream, if the institution of marriage w...
MOKOKOMA MOKHONOANA I would have brought something different and unique. But they wanted someone with administrative exp...
DAVID MAGNANI Protecting the institution of marriage safeguards, I believe, the American family.
JOHN BOEHNER God created the institution of marriage for mutual happiness and pleasure
PST ADELAJA SUNDAY God created the institution of marriage for mutual happiness and pleasure.
SUNDAY ADELAJA An historic institution, which never went right, is really quite much of a miracle as an institution...
G.K. CHESTERTON The family was God's idea, not our own, and it is still a wonderful institution.
JAMES C. DOBSON We all want merit to mean something, and we all may be tempted to reduce that meaning to something m...
ERIC LIU Marriage is not just about two loving and committed people. Marriage is a social institution that pr...
JULAINE APPLING I don't think it does. These are people who struggle with their life. The compound shows a very diff...
CAROLYN STRAUSS We want to change it from a New York institution with regional branches into a global institution wi...
RICHARD HOLBROOKE would like to extend a helping hand to any displaced students who may wish to enroll in our institut...
BARBARA DIXON I would found an institution where any person can find instruction in any study.
EZRA CORNELL It's an opportunity to draw the entire community together. Not to focus on a man, but to focus on th...
JUDI HENSLEY A founder can carry an institution only so far, and then others have to step in, even the alumni. Th...
SHIV NADAR I believe in the institution of marriage, and I intend to keep trying till I get it right.
RICHARD PRYOR The institutions of Churchianity are not Christianity. An institution is a good thing if it is secon...
OSWALD CHAMBERS Marriage is a natural and beautiful institution between a man and a woman. It's wrong for judges and...
RANDY THOMASSON If traditional marriage is not the law of the land, the institution of the family will cease to exis...
JAMES DOBSON The marriage of a man and woman is the most enduring human institution, honored in all cultures and ...
JEFF MILLER It seems to me that Sotheby's is very much like the British monarchy: an old and apparently very...
ROBERT LACEY In many ways, the crumbling of the institution of marriage is the real 'war on women.' Marri...
TIM HUELSKAMP This is not a question of one man, but of an institution that needs to be reformed.
GUIDO TABELLINI If the only way we can be shareholders in the tedious marriage institution is by first doing a 4year...
DAVID ATTA (A.K.A DAVIED ATTLARS & MR DAIN) It's more than a game. It's an institution.
THOMAS HUGHES The institution of Royalty in any form is an insult to the human race.
MARK TWAIN Slavery is an institution for converting men into monkeys.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON An institution is the lengthened shadow of one man.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON We try to target our examinations to the specific activities of an institution and those that repres...
BARBARA GRUNKEMEYER Both [P. T.] Barnum and H. L. Mencken are said to have made the depressing observation that no one e...
CARL SAGAN There's a lot of me in it. But the character is more egotistical. I'm also egotistical, but not the ...
PAULO COELHO Marriage is a very sacred institution and should not be degraded by allowing every other type of rel...
BEN CARSON We want it to be the institution that it was in its heyday.
PAUL NUNNALLY Marriage is an institution fits in perfect harmony with the laws of nature; whereas systems of slave...
JACK KINGSTON I believe in the institution of marriage and it's like a tag to cement the relationship for your...
KAREENA KAPOOR KHAN The tattoo is just setting below his hp bone.
H e l l i s e m p t y
a n d a l l t h e d ...
TAHEREH MAFI [Democracy:] An institution in which the whole is equal to the scum of the parts.
KEITH PRESTON Property is a central economic institution of any society, and private property is the central insti...
DAVID FRIEDMAN Is not marriage an open question, when it is alleged, from the beginning of the world, that such as ...
RALPH WALDO EMERSON An institution rooted in slavery can never set us free.
DASHANNE STOKES Nobody is bothered about an institution more than its alumni.
N. R. NARAYANA MURTHY Democracy is a fragile institution.
BOB GRAHAM Culture, what you believe, what you value, how you live matters. Now, as fundamental as these princi...
MITT ROMNEY The issue that all of us face is that alumni love to have the institution frozen in amber. The truth...
GORDON GEE The Royal Academy of Dance is an institution that trains to a very high standard.
DARCEY BUSSELL I do not want history to record me as someone who has bequeathed to his nation the institution of de...
MUSTAFA KEMAL ATATURK Obviously we want people to come and root us on, but it's kind of sad for an institution like the Le...
LON MILES It's a very good institution. You can't help but sympathize with the people who work there.
LAURA GUNN In every civilized society, there is an established institution put in place to design laws that mak...
SUNDAY ADELAJA A writer must refuse to allow himself to be transformed into an institution.
JEAN-PAUL SARTRE The institution would have been crippled. It would have been without credibility.
DOUG MUZZIO removed prayer from our public schools . . . legalized the barbaric killing of unborn babies, and it...
ZELL MILLER It is more than a book, it is an institution which rules the Christian world.
PHILIP SCHAFF An institution rooted in slavery cannot be the voice of our people.
DASHANNE STOKES the church was an international institution long before globalization.
SHANE CLAIBORNE I think there is some credibility to the notion that marriage is an institution. It meant something ...
ZAK ORTH If that were to happen, the institution most in danger would be the newspaper in your hands.
MAUREEN DOWD If bigots oppose gay marriage so vehemently, it must be because marriage is a defining institution f...
EDMUND WHITE The institution of marriage should be re-examined because of its overwhelming claustrophobia. The od...
PETER BEARD Marriage is a core institution of societies throughout the world and throughout history. It's someth...
DAVID VITTER You find people doing bad things, whether it's in a community setting or in an institution. But in m...
DON PUTNAM I don't believe that someone who sets up an institution should be able to take out the money fro...
PALLAM RAJU The more rational an institution is the less it suffers by making concessions to others.
GEORGE SANTAYANA One of the things that gets confused often is the difference between marriage and good marriage. Mar...
REBECCA TRAISTER I suggest that what we want to do is not to leave to posterity a great institution, but to leave beh...
HENRY R. LUCE If people institute wrong institutions, wrong institutions do not just produce wrong people, but wro...
ERNEST AGYEMANG YEBOAH Iron Maiden is an institution, and I'm delighted that I'm involved in it, but there was a time that ...
BRUCE DICKINSON

More H. L. Mencken

Honor is simply the morality of superior men.
H. L. MENCKEN A man may be a fool and not know it, but not if he is married.
H. L. MENCKEN There is always an easy solution to every problem - neat, plausible, and wrong.
H. L. MENCKEN Temptation is a woman's weapon and man's excuse.
H. L. MENCKEN For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.
H. L. MENCKEN The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.
H. L. MENCKEN A newspaper is a device for making the ignorant more ignorant and the crazy crazier.
H. L. MENCKEN A good politician is quite as unthinkable as an honest burglar.
H. L. MENCKEN Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin sl...
H. L. MENCKEN Love is like war: easy to begin but very hard to stop.
H. L. MENCKEN On one issue, at least, men and women agree; they both distrust women.
H. L. MENCKEN The most valuable of all human possessions, next to a superior and disdainful air, is the reputation...
H. L. MENCKEN Nothing is so abject and pathetic as a politician who has lost his job, save only a retired stud-hor...
H. L. MENCKEN A politician is an animal which can sit on a fence and yet keep both ears to the ground.
H. L. MENCKEN One horse-laugh is worth ten thousand syllogisms. It is not only more effective; it is also vastly ...
H. L. MENCKEN I believe that it is better to tell the truth than a lie. I believe it is better to be free than to ...
H. L. MENCKEN Time stays, we go.
H. L. MENCKEN A nun, at best, is only half a woman, just as a priest is only half a man.
H. L. MENCKEN The truth is, as every one knows, that the great artists of the world are never Puritans, and seldom...
H. L. MENCKEN Archbishop -- A Christian ecclesiastic of a rank superior to that attained by Christ.
H. L. MENCKEN A church is a place in which gentlemen who have never been to heaven brag about it to persons who wi...
H. L. MENCKEN All the political seers and sorcerers seem to be agreed that the coming Presidential campaign will b...
H. L. MENCKEN The time must come inevitably when mankind shall surmount the imbecility of religion, as it has surm...
H. L. MENCKEN The chief knowledge that a man gets from reading books is the knowledge that very few of them are wo...
H. L. MENCKEN There are two kinds of books. Those that no one reads and those that no one ought to read.
H. L. MENCKEN There are people who read too much: bibliobibuli. I know some who are constantly drunk on books, as ...
H. L. MENCKEN War will never cease until babies begin to come into the world with larger cerebrums and smaller adr...
H. L. MENCKEN Love is an emotion that is based on an opinion of women that is impossible for those who have had an...
H. L. MENCKEN Love is the delusion that one man or woman differs from another.
H. L. MENCKEN To be in love is merely to be in a perpetual state of anesthesia.
H. L. MENCKEN I write in order to attain that feeling of tension relieved and function achieved which a cow enjoys...
H. L. MENCKEN I go on working for the same reason that a hen goes on laying eggs.
H. L. MENCKEN If I ever marry it will be on a sudden impulse, as a man shoots himself.
H. L. MENCKEN Whenever a husband and wife begin to discuss their marriage they are giving evidence at a coroner's ...
H. L. MENCKEN The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed [and hence clamorous to be led t...
H. L. MENCKEN We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense that we respect his theory that ...
H. L. MENCKEN It is a sin to believe in the evil of others, but it is seldom a mistake.
H. L. MENCKEN Under democracy, one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party...
H. L. MENCKEN We must be willing to pay a price for freedom.
H. L. MENCKEN No man could bring himself to reveal his true character, and, above all, his true limitations as a c...
H. L. MENCKEN School-days, I believe, are the unhappiest in the whole span of human existence. They are full of du...
H. L. MENCKEN Let's not burn the universities yet. After all, the damage they do might be worse.
H. L. MENCKEN The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all: it is simply to reduce as many in...
H. L. MENCKEN The curse of man, and the cause of nearly all his woe, is his stupendous capacity for believing the ...
H. L. MENCKEN It is a sin to believe evil of others, but it is seldom a mistake.
H. L. MENCKEN Fame: an embalmer trembling with stage fright.
H. L. MENCKEN So few men are really worth knowing, that it seems a shameful waste to let an anthropoid prejudice s...
H. L. MENCKEN One may no more live in the world without picking up the moral prejudices of the world than one will...
H. L. MENCKEN The urge to save humanity is almost always only a false face for the urge to rule it.
H. L. MENCKEN Man is always looking for someone to boast to; woman is always looking for a shoulder to put her hea...
H. L. MENCKEN A man's women folk, whatever their outward show of respect for his merit and authority, always regar...
H. L. MENCKEN Men have a much better time of it than women. For one thing, they marry later, for another thing, th...
H. L. MENCKEN Man weeps to think that he will die so soon; woman, that she was born so long ago.
H. L. MENCKEN Bachelors have consciences, married men have wives.
H. L. MENCKEN Bachelors know more about women than married men; if they didn't, they'd be married too.
H. L. MENCKEN It is impossible to believe that the same God who permitted His own son to die a bachelor regards ce...
H. L. MENCKEN To the best of my knowledge and belief, the average American newspaper, even of the so-called better...
H. L. MENCKEN The opera is to music what a bawdy house is to a cathedral.
H. L. MENCKEN Time is the great equalizer in the field of morals.
H. L. MENCKEN The difference between a moral man and a man of honor is that the latter regrets a discreditable act...
H. L. MENCKEN Morality is the theory that every human act must be either right or wrong, and that 99% of them are ...
H. L. MENCKEN Moral certainty is always a sign of cultural inferiority. The more uncivilized the man, the surer he...
H. L. MENCKEN The average man does not get pleasure out of an idea because he thinks it is true; he thinks it is t...
H. L. MENCKEN Women have simple tastes. They get pleasure out of the conversation of children in arms and men in l...
H. L. MENCKEN A metaphysician is one who, when you remark that twice two makes four, demands to know what you mean...
H. L. MENCKEN Philosophy consists very largely of one philosopher arguing that all others are jackasses. He usuall...
H. L. MENCKEN There is no record in history of a happy philosopher.
H. L. MENCKEN An idealist is one who, on noticing that a rose smells better than a cabbage, concludes that it is a...
H. L. MENCKEN Whenever you hear a man speak of his love for his country, it is a sign that he expects to be paid f...
H. L. MENCKEN A society made up of individuals who were all capable of original thought would probably be unendura...
H. L. MENCKEN Don't overestimate the decency of the human race.
H. L. MENCKEN Man is never honestly the fatalist, nor even the stoic. He fights his fate, often desperately. He is...
H. L. MENCKEN I believe in only one thing: liberty; but I do not believe in liberty enough to want to force it upo...
H. L. MENCKEN There is nothing worse than an idle hour, with no occupation offering. People who have many such hou...
H. L. MENCKEN Say what you will about the Ten Commandments, you must always come back to the pleasant fact that th...
H. L. MENCKEN One horse-laugh is worth ten thousand syllogisms. It is not only more effective; it is also vastly m...
H. L. MENCKEN A prohibitionist is the sort of man one couldn't care to drink with, even if he drank.
H. L. MENCKEN On one issue at least, men and women agree; they both distrust women.
H. L. MENCKEN The world always makes the assumption that the exposure of an error is identical with the discovery ...
H. L. MENCKEN Communism, like any other revealed religion, is largely made up of prophecies.
H. L. MENCKEN What men value in this world is not rights but privileges.
H. L. MENCKEN The common argument that crime is caused by poverty is a kind of slander on the poor.
H. L. MENCKEN Conscience is a mother-in-law whose visit never ends.
H. L. MENCKEN Conscience is the inner voice which warns us that someone may be looking.
H. L. MENCKEN Life is a constant oscillation between the sharp horns of dilemmas.
H. L. MENCKEN If I had my way, no man guilty of golf would be eligible to any office of trust under the United Sta...
H. L. MENCKEN It is impossible to imagine the universe run by a wise, just and omnipotent God, but it is quite eas...
H. L. MENCKEN Men become civilized, not in proportion to their willingness to believe, but in proportion to their ...
H. L. MENCKEN The cure for the evils of democracy is more democracy.
H. L. MENCKEN Democracy is the theory that the common people know what They want, and deserve to get it good and h...
H. L. MENCKEN Democracy is also a form of religion. It is the worship of jackals by jackasses.
H. L. MENCKEN The men the American people admire most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest...
H. L. MENCKEN The truth that survives is simply the lie that is pleasantest to believe.
H. L. MENCKEN Lying is not only excusable; it is not only innocent; it is, above all, necessary and unavoidable. W...
H. L. MENCKEN It is impossible to think of a man of any actual force and originality, universally recognized as ha...
H. L. MENCKEN Criticism is prejudice made plausible.
H. L. MENCKEN A celebrity is one who is known to many persons he is glad he doesn't know.
H. L. MENCKEN Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable.
H. L. MENCKEN As the arteries grow hard, the heart grows soft.
H. L. MENCKEN Have you ever watched a crab on the shore crawling backward in search of the Atlantic Ocean, and mis...
H. L. MENCKEN Man is a beautiful machine that works very badly.
H. L. MENCKEN The basic fact about human existence is not that it is a tragedy, but that it is a bore. It is not s...
H. L. MENCKEN Historian -- an unsuccessful novelist.
H. L. MENCKEN Jealousy is the theory that some other fellow has just as little taste.
H. L. MENCKEN The evidence of the emotions, save in cases where it has strong objective support, is really no evid...
H. L. MENCKEN Government is actually the worst failure of civilized man. There has never been a really good one, a...
H. L. MENCKEN The legislature, like the executive, has ceased to be even the creature of the people: it is the cre...
H. L. MENCKEN The objection of the scandalmonger is not that she tells of racy doings, but that she pretends to be...
H. L. MENCKEN God is the immemorial refuge of the incompetent, the helpless, the miserable. They find not only san...
H. L. MENCKEN The movies today are too rich to have any room for genuine artists. They produce a few passable craf...
H. L. MENCKEN Injustice is relatively easy to bear what stings is justice.
H. L. MENCKEN The penalty for laughing in a courtroom is six months in jail; if it were not for this penalty, the ...
H. L. MENCKEN JUDGE, n: A law student who marks his own papers.
H. L. MENCKEN Most people want security in this world, not liberty.
H. L. MENCKEN The fact that I have no remedy for all the sorrows of the world is no reason for my accepting yours....
H. L. MENCKEN Thanksgiving Day is a day devoted by persons with inflammatory rheumatism to thanking a loving Fathe...
H. L. MENCKEN Temptation is a woman's weapon and man's excuse.
H. L. MENCKEN The lunatic fringe wags the underdog.
H. L. MENCKEN Hygiene is the corruption of medicine by morality. It is impossible to find a hygienist who does not...
H. L. MENCKEN Opera in English, is about as sensible as baseball in Italian.
H. L. MENCKEN The Belief that man is outfitted with an immortal soul, differing altogether from the engines which ...
H. L. MENCKEN Alimony -- the ransom that the happy pay to the devil.
H. L. MENCKEN A gentlemen is one who never strikes a woman without provocation.
H. L. MENCKEN No one hates his job so heartily as a farmer.
H. L. MENCKEN The public, with its mob yearning to be instructed, edified and pulled by the nose, demands certaint...
H. L. MENCKEN It is the dull man who is always sure, and the sure man who is always dull.
H. L. MENCKEN When women kiss it always reminds one of prize-fighters shaking hands.
H. L. MENCKEN A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin.
H. L. MENCKEN The cynics are right nine times out of ten.
H. L. MENCKEN The only cure for contempt is counter-contempt.
H. L. MENCKEN Imagine the Creator as a stand up comedian - and at once the world becomes explicable.
H. L. MENCKEN It is now quite lawful for a Catholic woman to avoid pregnancy by a resort to mathematics, though sh...
H. L. MENCKEN After all, all he did was string together a lot of old, well-known quotations.
H. L. MENCKEN Unionism, seldom if ever, uses such powers as it has to ensure better work; almost always it devotes...
H. L. MENCKEN I never agree with Communists or any other kind of kept men.
H. L. MENCKEN The idea that leisure is of value in itself is only conditionally true. The average man simply spend...
H. L. MENCKEN Remorse is regret that one waited so long to do it.
H. L. MENCKEN Self-respect: the secure feeling that no one, as yet, is suspicious.
H. L. MENCKEN Life is a dead-end street.
H. L. MENCKEN It is now quite lawful for a Catholic woman to avoid pregnancy by a resort to mathematics, though sh...
H. L. MENCKEN It doesn't take a majority to make a rebellion; it takes only a few determined leaders and a sound c...
H. L. MENCKEN The difference between a moral man and a man of honor is that the latter regrets a discreditable act...
H. L. MENCKEN No one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public.
H. L. MENCKEN The truth is that the average schoolmaster, on all the lower levels, is and always must be essential...
H. L. MENCKEN The more a man dreams, the less he believes.
H. L. MENCKEN On one issue at least, men and women agree: they both distrust women.
H. L. MENCKEN Unquestionably, there is progress. The average American now pays twice as much in taxes as he former...
H. L. MENCKEN The penalty for laughing in a courtroom is six months in jail; if it were not for this penalty, the...
H. L. MENCKEN Before a man speaks, it is always safe to assume that he is a fool. After he speaks it is seldom nec...
H. L. MENCKEN How little it takes to make life unbearable: a pebble in the shoe, a cockroach in the spaghetti, a w...
H. L. MENCKEN The chief value of money lies in the fact that one lives in a world in which it is overestimated.
H. L. MENCKEN Misogynist: A man who hates women as much as women hate one another.
H. L. MENCKEN The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundre...
H. L. MENCKEN Conscience is the inner voice that warns us somebody may be looking.
H. L. MENCKEN The capacity of human beings to bore one another seems to be vastly greater than that of any other a...
H. L. MENCKEN Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.
H. L. MENCKEN To die for an idea; it is unquestionably noble. But how much nobler it would be if men died for idea...
H. L. MENCKEN The government consists of a gang of men exactly like you and me. They have, taking one with another...
H. L. MENCKEN I believe that all government is evil, and that trying to improve it is largely a waste of time.
H. L. MENCKEN It is impossible to imagine Goethe or Beethoven being good at billiards or golf.
H. L. MENCKEN Alimony - the ransom that the happy pay to the devil.
H. L. MENCKEN On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at la...
H. L. MENCKEN Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.
H. L. MENCKEN In war the heroes always outnumber the soldiers ten to one.
H. L. MENCKEN The most costly of all follies is to believe passionately in the palpably not true. It is the chief ...
H. L. MENCKEN It is inaccurate to say that I hate everything. I am strongly in favor of common sense, common hones...
H. L. MENCKEN Marriage is a wonderful institution, but who would want to live in an institution?
H. L. MENCKEN In this world of sin and sorrow there is always something to be thankful for; as for me, I rejoice t...
H. L. MENCKEN The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led t...
H. L. MENCKEN It doesn't take a majority to make a rebellion; it takes only a few determined leaders and a sou...
H. L. MENCKEN Democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey cage.
H. L. MENCKEN An idealist is one who, on noticing that roses smell better than a cabbage, concludes that it will a...
H. L. MENCKEN Every man sees in his relatives, and especially in his cousins, a series of grotesque caricatures of...
H. L. MENCKEN Strike an average between what a woman thinks of her husband a month before she marries him and what...
H. L. MENCKEN Democracy is only a dream: it should be put in the same category as Arcadia, Santa Claus, and Heaven...
H. L. MENCKEN Love is the delusion that one woman differs from another.
H. L. MENCKEN No one in this world, so far as I know - and I have searched the records for years, and employed age...
H. L. MENCKEN The one permanent emotion of the inferior man is fear - fear of the unknown, the complex, the inexpl...
H. L. MENCKEN No matter how happily a woman may be married, it always pleases her to discover that there is a nice...
H. L. MENCKEN I never lecture, not because I am shy or a bad speaker, but simply because I detest the sort of peop...
H. L. MENCKEN The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out... without regar...
H. L. MENCKEN Puritanism. The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.
H. L. MENCKEN I never smoked a cigarette until I was nine.
H. L. MENCKEN If a politician found he had cannibals among his constituents, he would promise them missionaries fo...
H. L. MENCKEN It is not materialism that is the chief curse of the world, as pastors teach, but idealism. Men get ...
H. L. MENCKEN Poetry has done enough when it charms, but prose must also convince.
H. L. MENCKEN Before a man speaks it is always safe to assume that he is a fool. After he speaks, it is seldom nec...
H. L. MENCKEN For it is mutual trust, even more than mutual interest that holds human associations together. Our f...
H. L. MENCKEN Bachelors know more about women than married men; if they didn't they'd be married too.
H. L. MENCKEN Every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods.
H. L. MENCKEN Unquestionably, there is progress. The average American now pays out twice as much in taxes as he fo...
H. L. MENCKEN Legend: A lie that has attained the dignity of age.
H. L. MENCKEN Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under.
H. L. MENCKEN It is hard for the ape to believe he descended from man.
H. L. MENCKEN Archbishop - A Christian ecclesiastic of a rank superior to that attained by Christ.
H. L. MENCKEN Adultery is the application of democracy to love.
H. L. MENCKEN Each party steals so many articles of faith from the other, and the candidates spend so much time ma...
H. L. MENCKEN Have you ever watched a crab on the shore crawling backward in search of the Atlantic Ocean, and mis...
H. L. MENCKEN A national political campaign is better than the best circus ever heard of, with a mass baptism and ...
H. L. MENCKEN There is a saying in Baltimore that crabs may be prepared in fifty ways and that all of them are goo...
H. L. MENCKEN