Men are the only animals that devote themselves, day in and day out, to making one another unhappy. It is an art like any other. Its virtuosi are called altruists.


H. L. Mencken

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More H. L. Mencken

Honor is simply the morality of superior men.
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A man may be a fool and not know it, but not if he is married.
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There is always an easy solution to every problem - neat, plausible, and wrong.
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Temptation is a woman's weapon and man's excuse.
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For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.
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The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.
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A newspaper is a device for making the ignorant more ignorant and the crazy crazier.
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A good politician is quite as unthinkable as an honest burglar.
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Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin sl...
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Love is like war: easy to begin but very hard to stop.
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On one issue, at least, men and women agree; they both distrust women.
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The most valuable of all human possessions, next to a superior and disdainful air, is the reputation...
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Nothing is so abject and pathetic as a politician who has lost his job, save only a retired stud-hor...
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A politician is an animal which can sit on a fence and yet keep both ears to the ground.
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One horse-laugh is worth ten thousand syllogisms. It is not only more effective; it is also vastly ...
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I believe that it is better to tell the truth than a lie. I believe it is better to be free than to ...
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Time stays, we go.
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A nun, at best, is only half a woman, just as a priest is only half a man.
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The truth is, as every one knows, that the great artists of the world are never Puritans, and seldom...
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Archbishop -- A Christian ecclesiastic of a rank superior to that attained by Christ.
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A church is a place in which gentlemen who have never been to heaven brag about it to persons who wi...
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All the political seers and sorcerers seem to be agreed that the coming Presidential campaign will b...
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The time must come inevitably when mankind shall surmount the imbecility of religion, as it has surm...
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The chief knowledge that a man gets from reading books is the knowledge that very few of them are wo...
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There are two kinds of books. Those that no one reads and those that no one ought to read.
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There are people who read too much: bibliobibuli. I know some who are constantly drunk on books, as ...
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War will never cease until babies begin to come into the world with larger cerebrums and smaller adr...
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Love is an emotion that is based on an opinion of women that is impossible for those who have had an...
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Love is the delusion that one man or woman differs from another.
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To be in love is merely to be in a perpetual state of anesthesia.
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I write in order to attain that feeling of tension relieved and function achieved which a cow enjoys...
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I go on working for the same reason that a hen goes on laying eggs.
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If I ever marry it will be on a sudden impulse, as a man shoots himself.
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Whenever a husband and wife begin to discuss their marriage they are giving evidence at a coroner's ...
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The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed [and hence clamorous to be led t...
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We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense that we respect his theory that ...
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It is a sin to believe in the evil of others, but it is seldom a mistake.
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Under democracy, one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party...
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We must be willing to pay a price for freedom.
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No man could bring himself to reveal his true character, and, above all, his true limitations as a c...
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School-days, I believe, are the unhappiest in the whole span of human existence. They are full of du...
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Let's not burn the universities yet. After all, the damage they do might be worse.
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The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all: it is simply to reduce as many in...
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The curse of man, and the cause of nearly all his woe, is his stupendous capacity for believing the ...
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It is a sin to believe evil of others, but it is seldom a mistake.
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Fame: an embalmer trembling with stage fright.
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So few men are really worth knowing, that it seems a shameful waste to let an anthropoid prejudice s...
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One may no more live in the world without picking up the moral prejudices of the world than one will...
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The urge to save humanity is almost always only a false face for the urge to rule it.
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Man is always looking for someone to boast to; woman is always looking for a shoulder to put her hea...
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A man's women folk, whatever their outward show of respect for his merit and authority, always regar...
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Men have a much better time of it than women. For one thing, they marry later, for another thing, th...
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Man weeps to think that he will die so soon; woman, that she was born so long ago.
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Bachelors have consciences, married men have wives.
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Bachelors know more about women than married men; if they didn't, they'd be married too.
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It is impossible to believe that the same God who permitted His own son to die a bachelor regards ce...
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To the best of my knowledge and belief, the average American newspaper, even of the so-called better...
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The opera is to music what a bawdy house is to a cathedral.
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Time is the great equalizer in the field of morals.
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The difference between a moral man and a man of honor is that the latter regrets a discreditable act...
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Morality is the theory that every human act must be either right or wrong, and that 99% of them are ...
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Moral certainty is always a sign of cultural inferiority. The more uncivilized the man, the surer he...
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The average man does not get pleasure out of an idea because he thinks it is true; he thinks it is t...
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Women have simple tastes. They get pleasure out of the conversation of children in arms and men in l...
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A metaphysician is one who, when you remark that twice two makes four, demands to know what you mean...
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Philosophy consists very largely of one philosopher arguing that all others are jackasses. He usuall...
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There is no record in history of a happy philosopher.
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An idealist is one who, on noticing that a rose smells better than a cabbage, concludes that it is a...
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Whenever you hear a man speak of his love for his country, it is a sign that he expects to be paid f...
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A society made up of individuals who were all capable of original thought would probably be unendura...
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Don't overestimate the decency of the human race.
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Say what you will about the Ten Commandments, you must always come back to the pleasant fact that th...
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One horse-laugh is worth ten thousand syllogisms. It is not only more effective; it is also vastly m...
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A prohibitionist is the sort of man one couldn't care to drink with, even if he drank.
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On one issue at least, men and women agree; they both distrust women.
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The world always makes the assumption that the exposure of an error is identical with the discovery ...
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Communism, like any other revealed religion, is largely made up of prophecies.
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What men value in this world is not rights but privileges.
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The common argument that crime is caused by poverty is a kind of slander on the poor.
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Conscience is a mother-in-law whose visit never ends.
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Conscience is the inner voice which warns us that someone may be looking.
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Life is a constant oscillation between the sharp horns of dilemmas.
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If I had my way, no man guilty of golf would be eligible to any office of trust under the United Sta...
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It is impossible to imagine the universe run by a wise, just and omnipotent God, but it is quite eas...
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Men become civilized, not in proportion to their willingness to believe, but in proportion to their ...
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The cure for the evils of democracy is more democracy.
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Democracy is the theory that the common people know what They want, and deserve to get it good and h...
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Democracy is also a form of religion. It is the worship of jackals by jackasses.
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The men the American people admire most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest...
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The truth that survives is simply the lie that is pleasantest to believe.
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Lying is not only excusable; it is not only innocent; it is, above all, necessary and unavoidable. W...
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It is impossible to think of a man of any actual force and originality, universally recognized as ha...
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Criticism is prejudice made plausible.
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A celebrity is one who is known to many persons he is glad he doesn't know.
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Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable.
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As the arteries grow hard, the heart grows soft.
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Have you ever watched a crab on the shore crawling backward in search of the Atlantic Ocean, and mis...
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Man is a beautiful machine that works very badly.
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The basic fact about human existence is not that it is a tragedy, but that it is a bore. It is not s...
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Historian -- an unsuccessful novelist.
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Jealousy is the theory that some other fellow has just as little taste.
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The evidence of the emotions, save in cases where it has strong objective support, is really no evid...
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Government is actually the worst failure of civilized man. There has never been a really good one, a...
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The legislature, like the executive, has ceased to be even the creature of the people: it is the cre...
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The objection of the scandalmonger is not that she tells of racy doings, but that she pretends to be...
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God is the immemorial refuge of the incompetent, the helpless, the miserable. They find not only san...
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The movies today are too rich to have any room for genuine artists. They produce a few passable craf...
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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 ...
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JUDGE, n: A law student who marks his own papers.
H. L. MENCKEN
Most people want security in this world, not liberty.
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The fact that I have no remedy for all the sorrows of the world is no reason for my accepting yours....
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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.
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The public, with its mob yearning to be instructed, edified and pulled by the nose, demands certaint...
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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.
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The cynics are right nine times out of ten.
H. L. MENCKEN
The only cure for contempt is counter-contempt.
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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...
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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...
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I never agree with Communists or any other kind of kept men.
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The idea that leisure is of value in itself is only conditionally true. The average man simply spend...
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Remorse is regret that one waited so long to do it.
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Life is a dead-end street.
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It is now quite lawful for a Catholic woman to avoid pregnancy by a resort to mathematics, though sh...
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It doesn't take a majority to make a rebellion; it takes only a few determined leaders and a sound c...
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The difference between a moral man and a man of honor is that the latter regrets a discreditable act...
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No one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public.
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The truth is that the average schoolmaster, on all the lower levels, is and always must be essential...
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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.
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Unquestionably, there is progress. The average American now pays twice as much in taxes as he former...
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The penalty for laughing in a courtroom is six months in jail; if it were not for this penalty, the...
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Before a man speaks, it is always safe to assume that he is a fool. After he speaks it is seldom nec...
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How little it takes to make life unbearable: a pebble in the shoe, a cockroach in the spaghetti, a w...
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The chief value of money lies in the fact that one lives in a world in which it is overestimated.
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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...
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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