Discover a wealth of wisdom and insight from H.l. Mencken through their most impactful and thought-provoking quotes and sayings. Expand your perspective with their inspiring words and share these beautiful H.l. Mencken quote pictures with your friends and followers on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, or your personal blog - all free of charge. We've compiled the top 933 H.l. Mencken quotes for you to explore and share with others.

Two avenues of approach to these rewards lie open to the ambitious fictioneer. On the one hand, he may throw all intelligible standards of merit to the winds, and devote himself to manufacturing new stories that are frankly bad, trusting to the fact that nine persons out of ten are utterly devoid of esthetic sense and hence unable to tell the bad from the good. And on the other hand, he may take stories, or parts of stories that have been told before, or that, in themselves, are scarcely worth the telling, and so encrust them with the ornaments of wit, of shrewd observation, of human sympathy and of stylein brief, so develop themthat readers of good taste will forget the unsoundness of the material in admiration of the ingenious and workmanlike way in which it is handled. By H.l. Mencken Stories Fictioneer Hand Avenues Approach

A man always blames the woman who fools him. In the same way he blames the door he walks into in the dark. By H.l. Mencken Blames Man Woman Fools Dark

Life may not be exactly pleasant, but it is at least not dull. Heave yourself into Hell today, and you may miss, tomorrow or next day, another Scopes trial, or another War to End War, or perchance a rich and buxom widow with all her first husband's clothes. There are always more Hardings hatching. I advocate hanging on as long as possible. By H.l. Mencken Life Pleasant Dull War Hell

When we consider the fact that the spectroscope has enabled us to make a chemical analysis of the sun, that the telephone has enabled us to hear 2,000 miles and that the x-rays have enabled us to see through flesh and bone, we must admit without reservation, that our power of perception, at some future day, may be infinite. And if we admit this we must admit the essential possibility of the superman. By H.l. Mencken Enabled Admit Sun Hear Miles

The average man never really thinks from end to end of his life. The mental activity of such people is only a mouthing of cliches. What they mistake for thought is simply a repetition of what they have heard. My guess is that well over 80 percent of the human race goes through life without having a single original thought. By H.l. Mencken End Average Man Life Thought

No man could bring himself to reveal his true character, and, above all, his true limitations as a citizen and a Christian, his true meannesses, his true imbecilities, to his friends, or even to his wife. Honest autobiography is therefore a contradiction in terms: the moment a man considers himself, even in petto, he tries to gild and fresco himself. Thus a man's wife, however realistic her view of him, always flatters him in the end, for the worst she sees in him is appreciably better, by the time she sees it, than what is actually there. By H.l. Mencken True Christian Man Wife Character

A free citizen in a free state, it seems to me, has an inalienable right to play with whomsoever he will, so long as he does not disturb the general peace. If any other citizen, offended by the spectacle, makes a pother, then that other citizen, and not the man exercising his inalienable right, should be put down by the police. By H.l. Mencken Free Citizen State Peace Inalienable

A gentlemen is one who never strikes a woman without provocation. By H.l. Mencken Provocation Gentlemen Strikes Woman

The Catholics get rid of the difficulty by setting up an infallible Pope, and consenting formally to accept his verdicts, but the Protestants simply chase their own tails. By depriving revelation of all force and authority, they rob their so-called religion of every dignity. It becomes, in their hands, a mere romantic imposture, unsatisfying to the pious and unconvincing to the judicious. By H.l. Mencken Pope Catholics Protestants Verdicts Tails

In the superman Nietzsche gave the world a conceivable and possible goal for all human effort. But there still remained a problem and it was this: When the superman at last appears on earth, what then? Will there be another super-superman to follow and another super-super-superman after that? In the end, will man become the equal of the creator of the universe, whoever or whatever He may be? Or will a period of decline come after, with return down the long line, through the superman down to man again, and then on to the anthropoid ape, to the lower mammals, to the asexual cell, and, finally, to mere inert matter, gas, ether, and empty space? By H.l. Mencken Nietzsche Superman Effort Gave World

What are the hallmarks of a competent writer of fiction? The first, it seems to me, is that he should be immensely interested in human beings, and have an eye sharp enough to see into them, and a hand clever enough to draw them as they are. The second is that he should be able to set them in imaginary situations which display the contents of their psyches effectively, and so carry his reader swiftly and pleasantly from point to point of what is called a good story. By H.l. Mencken Fiction Hallmarks Competent Writer Point

Here is one of the fundamental defects of American fictionperhaps the one character that sets it off sharply from all other known kinds of contemporary fiction. It habitually exhibits, not a man of delicate organization in revolt against the inexplicable tragedy of existence, but a man of low sensibilities and elemental desires yielding himself gladly to his environment, and so achieving what, under a third-rate civilization, passes for success. To get on: this is the aim. To weigh and reflect, to doubt and rebel: this is the thing to be avoided. By H.l. Mencken American Fiction Man Fundamental Defects

The so-called Philosophy of India is even more blowsy and senseless than the metaphysics of the West. It is at war with everything we know of the workings of the human mind, and with every sound idea formulated by mankind. If it prevailed in the whole modern world we'd still be in the Thirteenth Century; nay, we'd be back among the Egyptians of the pyramid age. Its only coherent contribution to Western thought has been theosophy-and theosophy is as idiotic as Christian Science. It has absolutely nothing to offer a civilized white man. By H.l. Mencken West Philosophy India Socalled Blowsy

It seems to me that society usually wins. There are, to be sure, free spirits in the world, but their freedom, in the last analysis, is not much greater than that of a canary in a cage. They may leap from perch to perch; they may bathe and guzzle at their will; they may flap their wings and sing. But they are still in the cage, and soon or late it conquers them. By H.l. Mencken Wins Cage Society Perch Free

The general burden of the Coolidge memoirs was that the right hon. gentleman was a typical American, and some hinted that he was the most typical since Lincoln. As the English say, I find myself quite unable to associate myself with that thesis. He was, in truth, almost as unlike the average of his countrymen as if he had been born green. The Americano is an expansive fellow, a back-slapper, full of amiability; Coolidge was reserved and even muriatic. The Americano has a stupendous capacity for believing, and especially for believing in what is palpably not true; Coolidge was, in his fundamental metaphysics, an agnostic. The Americano dreams vast dreams, and is hag-ridden by a demon; Coolidge was not mount but rider, and his steed was a mechanical horse. The Americano, in his normal incarnation, challenges fate at every step and his whole life is a struggle; Coolidge took things as they came. By H.l. Mencken Coolidge Americano Hon General Burden

In my day a reporter who took an assignment was wholly on his own until he got back to the office, and even then he was little molested until his copy was turned in at the desk; today he tends to become only a homunculus at the end of a telephone wire, and the reduction of his observations to prose is commonly farmed out to literary castrati who never leave the office, and hence never feel the wind of the world in their faces or see anything with their own eyes. By H.l. Mencken Office Desk Today Wire Eyes

All great religions, in order to escape absurdity, have to admit a dilution of agnosticism. It is only the savage, whether of the African bush or the American gospel tent, who pretends to know the will and intent of God exactly and completely. By H.l. Mencken Religions Absurdity Agnosticism Great Order

It is almost as safe to assume that an artist of any dignity is against his country, i.e., against the environment in which God hath placed him, as it is to assume that his country is against the artist. By H.l. Mencken Assume Country God Artist Safe

The typical American of today has lost all the love of liberty, that his forefathers had, and all their disgust of emotion, and pride in self- reliance. He is led no longer by Davy Crocketts; he is led by cheer leaders, press agents, word mongers, uplifters. By H.l. Mencken Reliance American Liberty Emotion Typical

The seasick passenger on an ocean liner detests the good sailor who stalks past him 265 times a day grandly smoking a large, greasy cigar. In precisely the same way the democrat hates the man who is having a better time in the world. This is the origin of democracy. It is also the origin of Puritanism. By H.l. Mencken Large Greasy Cigar Seasick Passenger

Morality and honor are not to be confused. The difference between a moral man and a man of honor is that the latter regrets a discreditable act, even when it has worked and he has not been caught. By H.l. Mencken Morality Confused Honor Man Act

For it is mutual trust, even more than mutual interest that holds human associations together. Our friends seldom profit us but they make us feel safe. Marriage is a scheme to accomplish exactly that same end. By H.l. Mencken Mutual Trust Interest Holds Human

The best client is a scared millionaire. By H.l. Mencken Millionaire Client Scared

The verdict of a jury is the a priori opinion of that juror who smokes the worst cigars. By H.l. Mencken Cigars Verdict Jury Priori Opinion

No matter how much a woman loved a man, it would still give her a glow to see him commit suicide for her. By H.l. Mencken Man Matter Woman Loved Give

My belief is that happiness is necessarily transient. The natural state of a reflective man is one of depression. The world is a botch. Women can make men perfectly happy, but they seldom know how to do it. They make too much effort: they overlook the powerful effect of simple amiability. Women are also the cause of the worst kind of unhappiness. By H.l. Mencken Transient Belief Happiness Necessarily Women

Monogamy, in brief, kills passion and passion is the most dangerous of all the surviving enemies to what we call civilization, which is based upon order, decorum, restraint, formality, industry, regimentation. The civilized man the ideal civilized man is simply one who never sacrifices the common security to his private passions. He reaches perfection when he even ceases to love passionately when he reduces the most profound of all his instinctive experiences from the level of an ecstasy to the level of a mere device for replenishing the armies and workshops of the world, keeping clothes in repair, reducing the infant death-rate, providing enough tenants for every landlord, and making it possible for the Polizei to know where every citizen is at any hour of the day or night. Monogamy accomplishes this, not by producing satiety, but by destroying appetite. It makes passion formal and uninspiring, and so gradually kills it. By H.l. Mencken Passion Decorum Restraint Formality Industry

Government, in its very essence, is opposed to all increase in knowledge. Its tendency is always towards permanence and against change ... [T]he progress of humanity, far from being the result of government, has been made entirely without its aid and in the face if its constant and bitter opposition. By H.l. Mencken Essence Knowledge Government Opposed Increase

All the charming and beautiful things, from the Song of Songs, to bouillabaisse, and from the nine Beethoven symphonies to the Martini cocktail, have been given to humanity by men who, when the hour came, turned from tap water to something with color in it, and more in it than mere oxygen and hydrogen. By H.l. Mencken Beethoven Martini Song Songs Things

Class consciousness is not one of our national diseases; we suffer, indeed, from its oppositethe delusion that class barriers are not real. That delusion reveals itself in many forms, some of them as beautiful as a glass eye. One is the Liberal doctrine that a prairie demagogue promoted to the United States Senate will instantly show all the sagacity of a Metternich ... another is the doctrine that a moronrun through a university and decorated with a Ph.D. will cease thereby to be a moron ... By H.l. Mencken Class Delusion Diseases Suffer Real

I know of no human being who has a better time than an eager and energetic young reporter. By H.l. Mencken Reporter Human Time Eager Energetic

Women have a hard enough time in this world: telling them the truth would be too cruel. By H.l. Mencken Women World Telling Cruel Hard

The truth is that the scientific value of Polar exploration is greatly exaggerated. The thing that takes men on such hazardous trips is really not any thirst for knowledge, but simply a yearning for adventure ... A Polar explorer always talks grandly of sacrificing his fingers and toes to science. It is an amiable pretention, but there is no need to take it seriously. By H.l. Mencken Polar Exaggerated Truth Scientific Exploration

A national political campaign is better than the best circus ever heard of, with a mass baptism and a couple of hangings thrown in. By H.l. Mencken National Political Campaign Circus Heard

Years ago I predicted that these suffragettes, tried out by victory, would turn out to be idiots. They are now hard at work proving it. Half of them devote themselves to advocating reforms, chiefly of a sexual character, so utterly preposterous that even male politicians and newspaper editors laugh at them; the other half succumb absurdly to the blandishments of the old-time male politicians, and so enroll themselves in the great political parties. A woman who joins one of these parties simply becomes an imitation man, which is to say, a donkey. By H.l. Mencken Years Suffragettes Victory Idiots Ago

Maugham's success, in fact, lies a good deal less in what he positively does than in what he discreetly leaves undone. He gets the colors of life into his Charles Strickland, not by playing a powerful beam of light upon him, but by leaving him a bit out of focusby constantly insisting, in the midst of every discussion of him, upon his pervasive mysteryin brief, by craftily making him appear, not as a commonplace, simple and completely understandable man, but as the half comprehended enigma that every genuine man of genius seems to all of us when we meet him in real life. By H.l. Mencken Maugham Success Fact Lies Undone

There is something poignantly pathetic in the picture of this valiant fighter - this arrogant ja-sager - this foe of men, gods and devils - being nursed and coddled like a little child. His old fierce pride and courage disappeared and he became docile and gentle. "You and I, my sister - we are happy!" he would say, and then his hand would slip out from his coverings and clasp that of the tender and faithful Lisbeth. Once she mentioned Wagner to him. "Den habe ich sehr geliebt!" he said. All his old fighting spirit was gone. He remembered only the glad days and the dreams of his youth. By H.l. Mencken Fighter Jasager Men Gods Devils

Liberty is of small value to the lower third of humanity. They greatly prefer security, which means protection by some class above them. They are always in favor of despots who promise to feed them. The only liberty an inferior man really cherishes is the liberty to quit work, stretch out in the sun, and scratch himself. By H.l. Mencken Humanity Liberty Small Lower Security

Before one may scare the plain people one must first have a firm understanding of the bugaboos that most facilely alarm them. One must study the schemes that have served to do it in the past, and one must study very carefully the technic of the chief current professionals. By H.l. Mencken Scare Plain People Firm Understanding

Setting aside the vast herd which shows no definable character at all, it seems to me that the minority distinguished by what is commonly regarded as an excess of sin is very much more admirable than the minority distinguished by an excess of virtue. My experience of the world has taught me that the average wine-bibbler is a far better fellow than the average prohibitionist, and that the average rogue is better company than the average poor drudge, and that the worst white-slave trader of my acquaintance is a decenter man than the best vice crusader. By H.l. Mencken Minority Distinguished Excess Average Setting

A woman, if she hates her husband (and many of them do), can make life so sour and obnoxious to him that even death upon the gallows seems sweet by comparison. This hatred, of course, is often, and perhaps almost invariably, quite justified. To be the wife of an ordinary man, indeed, is an experience that must be very hard to bear. The hollowness and vanity of the fellow, his petty meanness and stupidity, his puling sentimentality and credulity, his bombastic air of a cock on a dunghill, his anaesthesia to all whispers and summonings of the spirit, above all, his loathsome clumsiness in amour - all these things must revolt any woman above the lowest. By H.l. Mencken Husband Comparison Hates Make Life

The American people, North and South, went into the [Civil] war as citizens of their respective states, they came out as subjects ... what they thus lost they have never got back. By H.l. Mencken Civil North South American People

The military caste did not originate as a party of patriots, but as a party of bandits By H.l. Mencken Party Patriots Bandits Military Caste

One of the most mawkish of human delusions is the notion that friendship should be eternal, or, at all events, life-long, and that any act which puts a term to it is somehow discreditable. By H.l. Mencken Lifelong Eternal Events Discreditable Mawkish

The ideal way to get rid of any infectious disease would be to shoot instantly every person who comes down with it. By H.l. Mencken Ideal Rid Infectious Disease Shoot

A man who knows a subject thoroughly, a man so soaked in it that he eats it, sleeps it and dreams it- this man can always teach it with success, no matter how little he knows of technical pedagogy. By H.l. Mencken Man Sleeps Success Pedagogy Subject

The most erroneous assumption is to the effect that the aim of public education is to fill the young of the species with knowledge and awaken their intelligence, and so make them fit to discharge the duties of citizenship in an enlightened and independent manner. Nothing could be further from the truth. The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all; it is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to put down dissent and originality. That is its aim in the United States, whatever the pretensions of politicians, pedagogues and other such mountebanks, and that is its aim everywhere else. By H.l. Mencken Aim Public Education Intelligence Manner

After all is said and done, a hell lot of a lot more is said than done. By H.l. Mencken Lot Hell

Looking for an honest politician is like looking for an ethical burglar. By H.l. Mencken Burglar Honest Politician Ethical

A good politician is quite as unthinkable as an honest burglar. By H.l. Mencken Burglar Good Politician Unthinkable Honest

The believing mind is externally impervious to evidence. The most that can be accomplished with it is to induce it to substitute one delusion for another. It rejects all overt evidence as wicked ... By H.l. Mencken Believing Mind Externally Impervious Evidence

It is the fundamental theory of all the more recent American law ... that the average citizen is half-witted, and hence not to be trusted to either his own devices or his own thoughts. By H.l. Mencken American Law Halfwitted Thoughts Fundamental

A sound American is simply one who has put out of his mind all doubts and questionings, and who accepts instantly, and as incontrovertible gospel, the whole body of official doctrine of his day, whatever it may be and no matter how often it may change. The instant he challenges it, no matter how timorously and academically, he ceases by that much to be a loyal and creditable citizen of the republic. By H.l. Mencken American Matter Questionings Instantly Gospel

There is a saying in Baltimore that crabs may be prepared in fifty ways and that all of them are good. By H.l. Mencken Baltimore Good Crabs Prepared Fifty

The American moron's mind simply does not run in that direction; he wants to keep his Ford, even at the cost of losing the Bill of Rights By H.l. Mencken Ford American Bill Direction Moron

No man is worthy of unlimited reliance-his treason, at best, only waits for sufficient temptation. By H.l. Mencken Treason Temptation Man Worthy Unlimited

No healthy man, in his secret heart, is content with his destiny. He is tortured by dreams and images as a child is tortured by the thought of a state of existence in which it would live in a candy store and have two stomachs. By H.l. Mencken Man Heart Destiny Tortured Healthy

There is, in fact, no reason to believe that any given natural phenomenon, however marvelous it may seem today, will remain forever inexplicable. Soon or late the laws governing the production of life itself will be discovered in the laboratory, and man may set up business as a creator on his own account. The thing, indeed, is not only conceivable; it is even highly probable. By H.l. Mencken Fact Phenomenon Today Inexplicable Reason

Two simple principles lie at the bottom of the whole matter, and they may be precipitated into two rules. The first is that, when there is a choice, the milder drink is always the better-not merely the safer but the better. The second is that no really enlightened drinker ever takes a drink at a time when he has any work to do. There is, of course, more to it than this; but these are sufficient for the beginner, and even the virtuoso never outgrows them. By H.l. Mencken Matter Rules Simple Principles Lie

There are men so philosophical that they can see humor in their own toothaches. But there has never lived a man so philosophical that he could see the toothache in his own humor. By H.l. Mencken Philosophical Humor Men Toothaches Toothache

Say what you will about the Ten Commandments, you must always come back to the pleasant fact that there are only ten of them. By H.l. Mencken Commandments Ten Back Pleasant Fact

A dull, dark, depressing day in Winter: the whole world looks like a Methodist church at Wednesday night prayer meeting. By H.l. Mencken Dark Winter Methodist Wednesday Dull

Democracy turns upon and devours itself. Universal suffrage, in theory the palladium of our liberties, becomes the assurance of our slavery. And that slavery will grow more and more abject and ignoble as the differential birth rate, the deliberate encouragement of mendicancy and the failure of popular education produce a larger and larger mass of prehensile half-wits, and so make the demagogues more and more secure. By H.l. Mencken Democracy Turns Devours Slavery Larger

Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance. No one in this world, so far as I know - and I have researched the records for years, and employed agents to help me - has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby. By H.l. Mencken Democracy Ignorance Pathetic Belief Collective

I dislike persons who change their basic ideas, and I dislike them when they change them for good reasons quite as much as when they change them for bad ones. A convert to a good idea is simply a man who confesses that he was formerly an ass - and is probably one still. When such a man favors me with a certificate that my eloquence has shaken him I feel about him precisely as I'd feel if he told me that he had started (or stopped) beating his wife on my recommendation. By H.l. Mencken Change Dislike Good Persons Basic

Of government, at least in democratic states, it may be said briefly that it is an agency engaged wholesale, and as a matter of solemn duty, in the performance of acts which all self-respecting individuals refrain from as a matter of common decency. By H.l. Mencken Matter Government States Wholesale Duty

Moral certainty is always a sign of cultural inferiority. The more uncivilized the man, the surer he is that he knows precisely what is right and what is wrong. All human progress, even in morals, has been the work of men who have doubted the current moral values, not of men who have whooped them up and tried to enforce them. The truly civilized man is always skeptical and tolerant, in this field as in all others. His culture is based on I am not too sure. By H.l. Mencken Inferiority Certainty Sign Cultural Moral

The Gettysburg Adress has been included, of late, in several anthologies of poetry. It actually meets the major requirement of all poetry: It is a mellifluous and emotional statement of the obviously not true. The men who fought for self-determination at Gettysburg were not the Federals but the Confederates. By H.l. Mencken Adress Poetry Gettysburg Included Late

This passion, so unordered and yet so potent, explains the capacity for teaching that one frequently observes in scientific men of high attainments in their specialties-for example, Huxley, Ostwald, Karl Ludwig, Virchow, Billroth, Jowett, William G. Sumner, Halsted and Osler-men who knew nothing whatever about the so-called science of pedagogy, and would have derided its alleged principles if they had heard them stated. By H.l. Mencken Huxley Ostwald Virchow Billroth Jowett

The truth is ... that the great artists of the world are never puritans, and seldom ever ordinarily respectable. No virtuous man - that is, virtuous in the YMCA sense - has ever painted a picture worth looking at, or written a symphony worth hearing, or a book worth reading, and it is highly improbable that the thing has ever been done by a virtuous woman. By H.l. Mencken Puritans Respectable Virtuous Worth Truth

To the best of my knowledge and belief, the average American newspaper, even of the so-called better sort, is not only quite as bad as Upton Sinclair says it is, but 10 times worse, 10 times as ignorant, 10 times as unfair and tyrannical, 10 times as complaisant and pusillanimous, and 10 times as devious, hypocritical, disingenuous, deceitful, pharisaical, Pecksniffian, fraudulent, slippery, unscrupulous, perfidious, lewd and dishonest. By H.l. Mencken Times Pecksniffian American Upton Sinclair

Unsuccessful candidates for the Presidency should be quietly hanged as a matter of public sanitation and decorum. By H.l. Mencken Presidency Unsuccessful Decorum Candidates Quietly

In brief, the teaching process, as commonly observed, has nothing to do with the investigation and establishment of facts, assuming that actual facts may ever be determined. Its sole purpose is to cram the pupils, as rapidly and as painlessly as possible, with the largest conceivable outfit of current axioms, in all departments of human thought - to make the pupil a good citizen, which is to say, a citizen differing as little as possible, in positive knowledge and habits of mind, from all other citizens. In other words, it is the mission of the pedagogue, not to make his pupils think, but to make them think right, and the more nearly his own mind pulsates with the great ebbs and flows of popular delusion and emotion, the more admirably he performs his function. He may be an ass, but this is surely no demerit in a man paid to make asses of his customers. By H.l. Mencken Facts Make Process Observed Assuming

For the Bible, despite all its contradictions and absurdities, its barbarisms and obscenities, remains grand and gaudy stuff, and so it deserves careful study and enlightened exposition. It is not only lovely in phrase; it is also rich in ideas, many of them far from foolish. One somehow gathers the notion that it was written from end to end by honest men - inspired, perhaps, but nevertheless honest. When they had anything to say they said it plainly, whether it was counsel that enemies be slain or counsel that enemies be kissed. They knew how to tell a story, and how to sing a song, and how to swathe a dubious argument in specious and disarming words. By H.l. Mencken Bible Absurdities Obscenities Remains Stuff

The average schoolmaster is and always must be essentially an ass, for how can one imagine an intelligent man engaging in so puerile an avocation. By H.l. Mencken Ass Avocation Average Schoolmaster Essentially

The average woman must inevitably view her actual husband with a certain disdain; he is anything but her ideal. In consequence, she cannot help feeling that her children are cruelly handicapped by the fact that he is their father. By H.l. Mencken Disdain Ideal Average Woman Inevitably

Women hate revolutions and revolutionists. They like men who are docile, and well-regarded at the bank, and never late at meals. By H.l. Mencken Women Revolutionists Hate Revolutions Docile

As animals go, even in so limited a space as our world, man is botched and ridiculous. Few other brutes are so stupid, so docile or so cowardly. By H.l. Mencken World Man Ridiculous Animals Limited

There is, it appears, a conspiracy of scientists afoot. Their purpose is to break down religion, propagate immorality, and so reduce mankind to the level of brutes. They are the sworn and sinister agents of Beelzebub, who yearns to conquer the world, and has his eye especially upon Tennessee.] By H.l. Mencken Afoot Conspiracy Scientists Beelzebub Tennessee

ChopinTwo embalmers at work upon a minor poetthe scent of tuberosesAutumn rain. By H.l. Mencken Chopintwo Rain Embalmers Work Minor

I can't imagine a genuinely intelligent boy getting much out of college, even out of a good college, save it be a cynical habit of mind. By H.l. Mencken College Save Mind Imagine Genuinely

The Puritan, of course, is not entirely devoid of aesthetic feeling. He has a taste for good form; he responds to style; he is even capable of something approaching a purely aesthetic emotion. But he fears this aesthetic emotion as an insinuating distraction from his chief business in life: the sober consideration of the all-important problem of conduct. Art is a temptation, a seduction, a Lorelei, and the Good Man may safely have traffic with it when it is broken to moral usesin other words, when its innocence is pumped out of it, and it is purged of gusto. By H.l. Mencken Puritan Aesthetic Feeling Devoid Good

What we need in this country is a general improvement in eating. We have the best raw materials in the world, both quantitatively and qualitatively, but most of them are ruined in the process of preparing them for the table. By H.l. Mencken Eating Country General Improvement World

Women in general seem to me to be appreciably more intelligent than men. A great many of them suffer in silence from the imbecilities of their husbands. By H.l. Mencken Women Men General Appreciably Intelligent

The state - or, to make matters more concrete, the government - consists of a gang of men exactly like you and me. They have, taking one with another, no special talent for the business of government; they have only a talent for getting and holding office. Their principal device to that end is to search out groups who pant and pine for something they can't get, and to promise to give it to them. Nine times out of ten that promise is worth nothing. The tenth time it is made good by looting 'A' to satisfy 'B'. In other words, government is a broker in pillage, and every election is a sort of advanced auction on stolen goods. By H.l. Mencken Government State Concrete Consists Talent

The dying man doesn't struggle much and he isn't much afraid. As his alkalies give out he succumbs to a blest stupidity. His mindfogs. His will power vanishes. He submits decently. He scarcely gives a damn. By H.l. Mencken Afraid Dying Man Struggle Stupidity

The Low Church rectors, in the main, struggle with poor congregations, born to the faith but deficient in buying power. As bank accounts increase the fear of the devil diminishes, and there arises a sense of beauty. This sense of beauty, in its practical effects, is identical with the work of the Paulist Fathers. By H.l. Mencken Low Church Beauty Rectors Main

At a time when the respectable bourgeois youngsters of my generation were college freshmen, oppressed by simian sophomores and affronted with balderdash daily and hourly by chalky pedagogues, I was at large in a wicked seaport of half a million people, with a front seat at every public show, as free of the night as of day, and getting earfuls of instruction in a hundred giddy arcana, none of them taught in schools ... [But] if I neglected the humanities, I was meanwhile laying in all the worldly wisdom of a police lieutenant, a bartender, a shyster lawyer, or a midwife. By H.l. Mencken Freshmen Oppressed Pedagogues People Show

The first kiss is stolen by the man; the last is begged by the woman. By H.l. Mencken Man Woman Kiss Stolen Begged

It is hard for the ape to believe he descended from man. By H.l. Mencken Man Hard Ape Descended

Injustice is relatively easy to bear; what stings is justice. By H.l. Mencken Injustice Bear Justice Easy Stings

Correct spelling, indeed, is one of the arts that are far more esteemed by schoolma'ams than by practical men, neck-deep in the heat and agony of the world. By H.l. Mencken Correct Spelling Men Neckdeep World

For it is an absurdity to call a country civilized in which a decent and industrious man, laboriously mastering a trade which is valuble and necessary to the common weal, has no assurance that it will sustain him while he stands ready to practice it, or keep him out of the poorhouse when illness or age makes him idle. By H.l. Mencken Man Laboriously Weal Idle Absurdity

I believe that liberty is the only genuinely valuable thing that men have invented, at least in the field of government, in a thousand years. I believe that it is better to be free than to be not free, even when the former is dangerous and the latter safe. I believe that the finest qualities of man can flourish only in free air - that progress made under the shadow of the policeman's club is false progress, and of no permanent value. I believe that any man who takes the liberty of another into his keeping is bound to become a tyrant, and that any man who yields up his liberty, in however slight the measure, is bound to become a slave ... In any dispute between a citizen and the government, it is my instinct to side with the citizen ... I am against all efforts to make men virtuous by law. By H.l. Mencken Liberty Free Man Invented Years

The federal [bank deposit] insurance scheme has worked up to now simply and solely because there have been very few bank failures. The next time we have a pestilence of them it will come to grief quickly enough, and if the good banks escape ruin with the bad ones it will be only because the taxpayer foots the bill. By H.l. Mencken Federal Deposit Insurance Failures Bank

There is reinforcement in such familiar back-formations as Chinee from Chinese, Portugee from Portuguese. By H.l. Mencken Chinese Portugee Portuguese Chinee Reinforcement

The objection of the scandalmonger is not that she tells of racy doings, but that she pretends to be indignant about them. By H.l. Mencken Objection Scandalmonger Racy Pretends Indignant

The theory behind representative government is that superior men-or at least men not inferior to the average in ability and integrity-are chosen to manage the public business, and that they carry on this work with reasonable intelligence and honest. There is little support for that theory in known facts ... By H.l. Mencken Business Honest Theory Representative Government

The fundamental trouble with marriage is that it shakes a man's confidence in himself, and so greatly diminishes his general competence and effectiveness. His habit of mind becomes that of a commander who has lost a decisive and calamitous battle. He quite trusts himself thereafter. By H.l. Mencken Effectiveness Fundamental Trouble Marriage Shakes

It seems to me that a great university ought to have room in it for men subscribing to every sort of idea that is currently prevalent By H.l. Mencken Prevalent Great University Room Men

The value the world sets upon motives is often grossly unjust and inaccurate. Consider, for example, two of them: mere insatiable curiosity and the desire to do good. The latter is put high above the former, and yet it is the former that moves one of the most useful men the human race has yet produced: the scientific investigator. What actually urges him on is not some brummagem idea of Service, but a boundless, almost pathological thirst to penetrate the unknown, to uncover the secret, to find out what has not been found out before. His prototype is not the liberator releasing slaves, the good Samaritan lifting up the fallen, but a dog sniffing tremendously at an infinite series of rat-holes. By H.l. Mencken Inaccurate World Sets Motives Grossly

The only kind of freedom that the mob can imagine is freedom to annoy and oppress its betters, and that is precisely the kind that we mainly have. By H.l. Mencken Kind Freedom Mob Imagine Annoy

For men become civilized, not in proportion to their willingness to believe, but in proportion to their readiness to doubt. The more stupid the man, the larger his stock of adamantine assurances, the heavier his load of faith. By H.l. Mencken Proportion Civilized Doubt Men Willingness

The typical lawmaker of today is a man wholly devoid of principle - a mere counter in a grotesque and knavish game. If the right pressure could be applied to him, he would be cheerfully in favor of polygamy, astrology or cannibalism. By H.l. Mencken Principle Game Typical Lawmaker Today

I have lived in one house in Baltimore for nearly forty-five years. It has changed in that time, as I have - but somehow it still remains the same. No conceivable decorator's masterpiece could give me the same ease. It is as much a part of me as my two hands. If I had to leave it I'd be as certainly crippled as if I lost a leg. By H.l. Mencken Baltimore Years Lived House Fortyfive

Is it hot in the rolling mill? Are the hours long? Is $15 a day not enough? Then escape is easy. Simply throw up your job, spit on your hands, and write another "Rosenkavailer." By H.l. Mencken Mill Hot Rolling Rosenkavailer Long

I believe in only one thing and that thing is human liberty. If ever a man is to achieve anything like dignity, it can happen only if superior men are given absolute freedom to think what they want to think and say what they want to say. I am against any man and any organization which seeks to limit or deny that freedom ... the superior man can be sure of freedom only if it is given to all men. By H.l. Mencken Thing Liberty Man Freedom Human

We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart. By H.l. Mencken Respect Religion Smart Fellow Sense

Nietzsche, an infinitely harder and more courageous intellect, was incapable of any such confusion of ideas; he seldom allowed sentimentality to turn him from the glaring fact. By H.l. Mencken Nietzsche Intellect Ideas Fact Infinitely

When I think of anything properly describable as a beautiful idea, it is always in the form of music. I have written and printed probably 10,000,000 words in English but all the same I shall die an inarticulate man, for my best ideas beset me in a language I know only vaguely and speak only as a child. By H.l. Mencken Music Properly Describable Beautiful Form

The American people, taking one with another, constitute the most timorous, snivelling, poltroonish, ignominious mob of serfs and goosesteppers ever gathered under one flag in Christendom since the end of the Middle Ages. By H.l. Mencken Ages Snivelling Poltroonish American Christendom

The human race is divided into two sharply differentiated and mutually antagonistic classes: a smal l minority that plays with ideas and is capable of taking them in, and a vast majority that finds them painful, and is thus arrayed against them, and against all who have traffic with them. By H.l. Mencken Classes Painful Human Race Divided

Has the art of politics no apparent utility? Does it appear to be unqualifiedly ratty, raffish, sordid, obscene, and low down, andits salient virtuosi a gang of unmitigated scoundrels? Then let us not forget its high capacity to soothe and tickle the midriff, its incomparable services as a maker of entertainment. By H.l. Mencken Utility Art Politics Apparent Raffish

The Fathers of the Republic, I believe, were far cleverer fellows than they are commonly represented to be, even in the schoolbooks. If it was not divine inspiration that moved them, then they must have drunk better liquor than is now obtainable on earth. For when they made religion a free-for-all, they prepared the way for making it ridiculous; and when they opened the doors of office to the mob, they disposed forever of the delusion that government is a solemn and noble thing, by wisdom out of altruism. By H.l. Mencken Republic Fathers Schoolbooks Cleverer Fellows

What are the characters that I discern most clearly in the so-called Anglo-Saxon type of man? I may answer at once that two stickout above all others. One is his curious and apparently incurable incompetencehis congenital inability to do any difficult thing easily and well, whether it be isolating a bacillus or writing a sonata. The other is his astounding susceptibility to fears and alarmsin short, his hereditary cowardice ... There is no record in history of any Anglo-Saxon nation entering upon any great war without allies. By H.l. Mencken Man Characters Discern Socalled Type

It is almost impossible for an Anglo-Saxon to write of sex without being dirty. By H.l. Mencken Dirty Impossible Anglosaxon Write Sex

The extortions and oppressions of government will go on so long as such bare fraudulence deceives and disarms the victims; so long as they are ready to swallow the immemorial official theory that protesting against the stealings of the archbishop's secretary's nephew's mistress' illegitimate son is a sin against the Holy Ghost. By H.l. Mencken Long Ghost Holy Victims Extortions

The double standard of morality will survive in this world so long as the woman whose husband has been lured away is favoured with the sympathetic tears of other women, and a man whose wife has made off is laughed at by other men. By H.l. Mencken Women Men Double Standard Morality

Such is the art of writing as Dreiser understands it and practices itan endless piling up of minutiae, an almost ferocious tracking down of ions, electrons and molecules, an unshakable determination to tell it all. One is amazed by the mole-like diligence of the man, and no less by his exasperating disregard for the ease of his readers. By H.l. Mencken Dreiser Minutiae Ions Electrons Molecules

In the present case it is a little inaccurate to say I hate everything. I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty and common decency. This makes me forever ineligible to any public office of trust or profit in the Republic. But I do not repine, for I am a subject of it only by force of arms. By H.l. Mencken Common Present Case Inaccurate Hate

Frankness and courage are luxuries confined to the more comic varieties of runners-up at national conventions. Thus it is pleasant to remember Cleveland, and to speak of him from time to time. He was the last of the Romans. If pedagogy were anything save the puerile racket that it is he would loom large in the schoolbooks. As it is, he is subordinated to Lincoln, Roosevelt I and Wilson. This is one of the things that are the matter with the United States. By H.l. Mencken Frankness Conventions Courage Luxuries Confined

You protest, and with justice, each time Hitler jails an opponent; but you forget that Stalin and company have jailed and murdered a thousand times as many. It seems to me, and indeed the evidence is plain, that compared to the Moscow brigands and assassins, Hitler is hardly more than a common Ku Kluxer and Mussolini almost a philanthropist. [In an open letter to Upton Sinclair, printed in The American Mercury, June 1936] By H.l. Mencken Stalin Hitler Protest Justice Opponent

If ever a man is to achieve anything like dignity, it can happen only if superior men are given absolute freedom to think what they want to think and say what they want to say. By H.l. Mencken Dignity Man Achieve Happen Superior

Here is tragedy and here is America. For the curse of the country, as well of all democracies, is precisely the fact that it treats its best men as enemies. The aim of our society, if it may be said to have an aim, is to iron them out. The ideal American, in the public sense, is a respectable vacuum. By H.l. Mencken America Tragedy Aim American Country

No woman is really humble; she is merely politic. No woman, with a free choice before her, chooses self-immolation; the most she genuinely desires in that direction is a spectacular martyrdom. No woman delights in poverty. No woman yields when she can prevail. No woman is honestly meek. By H.l. Mencken Woman Humble Politic Chooses Selfimmolation

Religion is fundamentally opposed to everything I hold in veneration - courage, clear thinking, honesty, fairness, and, above all, love of the truth. By H.l. Mencken Courage Honesty Fairness Religion Veneration

What is the function that a clergyman performs in the world? Answer: He gets his living by assuring idiots that he can save them from an imaginary hell. By H.l. Mencken World Answer Function Clergyman Performs

A man of active and resilient mind outwears his friendships just as certainly as he outwears his love affairs, his politics and his epistemology. By H.l. Mencken Outwears Affairs Epistemology Man Active

As long as the Southern colleges have revivals on their campuses and students get converted to Methodism and join the YMCA and are accepted as gentlemen, it will be impossible to think of the South as civilized ... The educated folk of the Old South took theology lightly, and religion to them was hardly more than a charming ritual, useful on solemn occassions. By H.l. Mencken Southern Methodism Ymca South Gentlemen

There is always a sheet of paper. There is always a pen. There is always a way out. By H.l. Mencken Paper Sheet Pen

A normal woman, indeed, no more believes in democracy in the nation than she believes in democracy at her own fireside; she knows that there must be a class to order and a class to obey, and that the two can never coalesce. Nor is she, susceptible to the stock sentimentalities upon which the whole democratic process is based. This was shown very dramatically in them United States at the national election of 1920, in which the late Woodrow Wilson was brought down to colossal and ignominious defeat - The first general election in which all American women could vote. All the sentimentality of the situation was on the side of Wilson, and yet fully three-fourths of the newly-enfranchised women voters voted against him. By H.l. Mencken Class Democracy Woman Fireside Obey

The aim of poetry, it appears, is to fill the mind with lofty thoughtsnot to give it joy, but to give it a grand and somewhat gaudy sense of virtue. The essay is a weapon against the degenerate tendencies of the age. The novel, properly conceived, is a means of uplifting the spirit; its aim is to inspire, not merely to satisfy the low curiosity of man in man. By H.l. Mencken Give Poetry Joy Virtue Fill

Nothing is so abject and pathetic as a politician who has lost his job, save only a retired stud-horse. By H.l. Mencken Job Save Studhorse Abject Pathetic

War will never cease until babies begin to come into the world with larger cerebrums and smaller adrenal glands. By H.l. Mencken War Glands Cease Babies Begin

No married man is genuinely happy if he has to drink worse whisky than he used to drink when he was single. By H.l. Mencken Drink Single Married Man Genuinely

No reporter of my generation, whatever his genius, ever really rated spats and a walking stick until he had covered both a lynching and a revolution. By H.l. Mencken Generation Genius Revolution Reporter Rated

If there were only three women left in the world, two of them would immediately convene a court-martial to try the other one. By H.l. Mencken World Women Left Immediately Convene

Unionism, seldom if ever, uses such powers as it has to ensure better work; almost always it devotes a large part of that power to safeguard bad work. By H.l. Mencken Unionism Work Seldom Ensure Devotes

When a husband's story is believed, he begins to suspect his wife. By H.l. Mencken Believed Wife Husband Story Begins

The woman who is not pursued sets up the doctrine that pursuit is offensive to her sex, and wants to make it a felony. No genuinely attractive woman has any such desire. She likes masculine admiration, however violently expressed, and is quite able to take care of herself. More, she is well aware that very few men are bold enough to offer it without a plain invitation, and this awareness makes her extremely cynical of all women who complain of being harassed, beset, storied, and seduced. All the more intelligent women that I know, indeed, are unanimously of the opinion that no girl in her right senses has ever been actually seduced since the world began; By H.l. Mencken Sex Felony Woman Pursued Sets

Ask the average American what is the salient passion in his emotional armamentarium - what is the idea that lies at the bottom of all his other ideas - and it is very probable that, nine times out of ten, he will nominate his hot and unquenchable rage for liberty. He regards himself, indeed, as the chief exponent of liberty in the whole world, and all its other advocates as no more than his followers, half timorous and half envious. To question his ardour is to insult him as grievously as if one questioned the honour of the republic or the chastity of his wife. And yet it must be plain to any dispassionate observer that this ardour, in the course of a century and a half, has lost a large part of its old burning reality and descended to the estate of a mere phosphorescent superstition. By H.l. Mencken American Liberty Idea Ideas Half

It [the State] has taken on a vast mass of new duties and responsibilities; it has spread out its powers until they penetrate to every act of the citizen, however secret; it has begun to throw around its operations the high dignity and impeccability of a State religion; its agents become a separate and superior caste, with authority to bind and loose, and their thumbs in every pot. But it still remains, as it was in the beginning, the common enemy of all well-disposed, industrious and decent men. By H.l. Mencken State Responsibilities Citizen Secret Religion

I give you Chicago. It is not London and Harvard. It is not Paris and buttermilk. It is American in every chitling and sparerib. It is alive from snout to tail. By H.l. Mencken Chicago Give Harvard London Paris

The average newspaper, especially of the better sort, has the intelligence of a hillbilly evangelist, the courage of a rat, the fairness of a prohibitionist boob-jumper, the information of a high school janitor, the taste of a designer of celluloid valentines, and the honor of a police-station lawyer. By H.l. Mencken Newspaper Sort Evangelist Rat Boobjumper

The Christian church, in its attitude toward science, shows the mind of a more or less enlightened man of the Thirteenth Century. It no longer believes that the earth is flat, but it is still convinced that prayer can cure after medicine fails. By H.l. Mencken Century Christian Thirteenth Church Science

The plain people, hereafter as in the past, will continue to make their own language, and the best that grammarians can do is to follow after it, haltingly, and not often with much insight into it. By H.l. Mencken Haltingly People Past Language Plain

To denounce moralizing out of hand is to pronounce a moral judgment. By H.l. Mencken Judgment Denounce Moralizing Hand Pronounce

History deals mainly with captains and kings, gods and prophets, exploiters and despoilers, not with useful men. By H.l. Mencken History Kings Gods Prophets Exploiters

The only practical effect of having a soul is that it fills man with anthropomorphic and anthropocentric vanities - in brief, with the cocky superstitions that make him disgusting. By H.l. Mencken Vanities Disgusting Practical Effect Soul

Race relations never improve in war time; they always worsen. And it is when the boys come home the Ku Klux Klans are organized. I believe with George Schuyler that the only really feasible way to improve the general situation of the American Negro is to convince more and more whites that he is, as men go in this world, a decent fellow, and that amicable living with him is not only possible but desirable. Every threat of mass political pressure, every appeal to political mountebanks, only alarms the white brother, and so postpones the day of reasonable justice. By H.l. Mencken Race Time Worsen Relations War

It is [a politician's] business to get and hold his job at all costs. If he can hold it by lying, he will hold it by lying; if lying peters out, he will try to hold it by embracing new truths. His ear is ever close to the ground. By H.l. Mencken Hold Politician Business Costs Lying

Conscience is the inner voice that warns us somebody may be looking. By H.l. Mencken Conscience Voice Warns

Suppose two-thirds of the members of the national House of Representatives were dumped into the Washington garbage incinerator tomorrow, what would we lose to offset our gain of their salaries and the salaries of their parasites? By H.l. Mencken Salaries House Representatives Washington Suppose

What makes philosophy so tedious is not the profundity of philosophers, but their lack of art; they are like physicians who soughtto cure a slight hyperacidity by prescribing a carload of burned oyster-shells. By H.l. Mencken Philosophers Art Oystershells Makes Philosophy

College football is a game which would be much more interesting if the faculty played instead of the students, and even more interesting if the trustees played. There would be a great increase in broken arms, legs, and necks, and simultaneously an appreciable diminution in the loss to humanity. By H.l. Mencken Interesting Played College Students Football

No matter how long he lives, no man ever becomes as wise as the average woman of forty-eight. By H.l. Mencken Lives Fortyeight Matter Long Man

Strike an average between what a woman thinks of her husband a month before she marries him and what she thinks of him a year afterward, and you will have the truth about him. By H.l. Mencken Strike Afterward Average Woman Husband

A woman usually respects her father, but her view of her husband is mingled with contempt, for she is of course privy to the transparent devices by which she snared him. By H.l. Mencken Father Contempt Woman Respects View

It is now quite lawful for a Catholic woman to avoid pregnancy by a resort to mathematics, though she is still forbidden to resort to physics and chemistry. By H.l. Mencken Resort Catholic Mathematics Chemistry Lawful

A professor must have a theory as a dog must have fleas. By H.l. Mencken Fleas Professor Theory Dog

Sunday school: A prison in which children do penance for the evil conscience of their parents. By H.l. Mencken Sunday School Parents Prison Children

What I got in Sunday school ... was simply a firm conviction that the Christian faith was full of palpable absurdities, and the Christian God preposterous ... The act of worship, as carried on by Christians, seems to me to be debasing rather than ennobling. It involves groveling before a being who, if he really exists, deserves to be denounced instead of respected. By H.l. Mencken Sunday God Christian School Absurdities

The demagogue is one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots. By H.l. Mencken Idiots Demagogue Preaches Doctrines Untrue

So few men are really worth knowing, that it seems a shameful waste to let an anthropoid prejudice stand in the way of free association with one who is. By H.l. Mencken Knowing Men Worth Shameful Waste

If it were advertised that a troupe of men of easy virtue were to appear half-clothed upon a public stage, exposing their chests, thighs, arms and calves, the only women who would go to the entertainment would be a few delayed adolescents, a psychopathic old maid or two, and a guard of indignant members of the parish Ladies Aid. By H.l. Mencken Aid Thighs Ladies Stage Exposing

High-toned humanitarians constantly overestimate the sufferings of those they sympathize with. By H.l. Mencken Hightoned Humanitarians Constantly Overestimate Sufferings

Don't tell me what delusion he entertains regarding God, or what mountebank he follows in politics, or what he springs from, or what he submits to from his wife. Simply tell me how he makes his living. It is the safest and surest of all known tests. A man who gets his board and lodging on this ball in an ignominious way is inevitably an ignominious man. By H.l. Mencken God Politics Wife Delusion Entertains

To large numbers of American citizens life in certain parts of the country becomes intolerably hazardous. They may be seized on any pretext, however flimsy, and put to death with horrible tortures. No government pretending to be civilized can go on condoning such atrocities. Either it must make every possible effort to put them down or it must suffer the scorn and contempt of Christendom. By H.l. Mencken American Hazardous Large Numbers Citizens

It is more blessed to give than receive; for example, wedding presents. By H.l. Mencken Receive Wedding Presents Blessed Give

Every complex problem has a simple solution that doesn't work. By H.l. Mencken Work Complex Problem Simple Solution

The one permanent emotion of the inferior man is fear - fear of the unknown, the complex, the inexplicable. What he wants above everything else is safety. By H.l. Mencken Fear Unknown Complex Inexplicable Permanent

The idea that leisure is of value in itself is only conditionally true. The average man simply spends his leisure as a dog spends it. His recreations are all puerile, and the time supposed to benefit him really only stupefies him. By H.l. Mencken True Leisure Idea Conditionally Spends

A Galileo could no more be elected president of the United States than he could be elected Pope of Rome. Both high posts are reserved for men favored by God with an extraordinary genius for swathing the bitter facts of life in bandages of self-illusion. By H.l. Mencken Rome Elected Galileo United States

The main thing that every political campaign in the United States demonstrates is that the politicians of all parties, despite their superficial enmities, are really members of one great brotherhood. Their principal, and indeed their sole, object is to collar public office, with all the privileges and profits that go therewith. They achieve this collaring by buying votes with other people's money. By H.l. Mencken United States Parties Enmities Brotherhood

I well recall my horror when I heard for the first time, of a journalist who had laid in a pair of what were then called bicycle pants and taken to golf; it was as if I had encountered a studhorse with his hair done up in frizzes, and pink bowknots peeking out of them. It seemed, in some vague way, ignominious, and even a bit indelicate. By H.l. Mencken Time Golf Frizzes Recall Horror

Christian endeavor is notoriously hard on female pulchritude. By H.l. Mencken Christian Pulchritude Endeavor Notoriously Hard

Life without sex might be safer but it would be unbearably dull. It is the sex instinct which makes women seem beautiful, which they are once in a blue moon, and men seem wise and brave, which they never are at all. Throttle it, denaturalize it, take it away, and human existence would be reduced to the prosaic, laborious, boresome, imbecile level of life in an anthill. By H.l. Mencken Dull Sex Safer Unbearably Life

Fame: an embalmer trembling with stage fright. By H.l. Mencken Fame Fright Embalmer Trembling Stage

Government today is growing too strong to be safe. There are no longer any citizens in the world there are only subjects. They work day in and day out for their masters they are bound to die for their masters at call. Out of this working and dying they tend to get less and less. By H.l. Mencken Government Safe Today Growing Strong

To be happy one must be (a) well fed, unhounded by sordid cares, at ease in Zion, (b) full of a comfortable feeling of superiority to the masses of one's fellow men, and (c) delicately and unceasingly amused according to one's taste. It is my contention that, if this definition be accepted, there is no country in the world wherein a man constituted as I am a man of my peculiar weakness, vanities, appetites, and aversions can be so happy as he can be in the United States. By H.l. Mencken Zion Fed Unhounded Cares Full

The essence of a sound style is that it cannot be reduced to rules-that it is a living and breathing thing with something of the devilish in it-that it fits its proprietor tightly yet ever so loosely, as his skin fits him. It is, in fact, quite as seriously an integral part of him as that skin is ... In brief, a style is always the outward and visible symbol of a man, and cannot be anything else. By H.l. Mencken Fits Loosely Skin Style Essence

Love is the mistaken belief that one woman differs from another. By H.l. Mencken Love Mistaken Belief Woman Differs

The townspeople are morons, yokels, peasants and genus homo boobiensis ... surrounded by gaping primates from the upland vallies. By H.l. Mencken Yokels Morons Peasants Boobiensis Townspeople

We are, in fact, a nation of evangelists; every third American devotes himself to improving and lifting up his fellow-citizens, usually by force; the messianic delusion is our national disease. By H.l. Mencken American Fact Evangelists Fellowcitizens Force

A sense of humor always withers in the presence of the messianic delusion, like justice and truth in front of patriotic passion. By H.l. Mencken Delusion Passion Sense Humor Withers

My argument for them is not altruistic in the least, but purely selfish. I should dislike to see them harassed by the law for two plain and sound reasons. One is that their continued existence soothes my vanity (and hence promotes my happiness) by proving to me that there are even worse fools in the world than I am. The other is that, if they were jailed to-morrow for believing in Christian Science, I should probably be jailed the next day for refusing to believe in something still sillier. Once the law begins to horn into such matters, I am against the law, no matter how virtuous its ostensible intent. No liberty is worth a hoot which doesn't allow the citizen to be foolish once in a while, and to kick up once in a while, and to hurt himself once in a while. By H.l. Mencken Law Selfish Argument Altruistic Purely

It reminds me of a string of wet sponges; it reminds me of tattered washing on the line; it reminds me of stale bean soup, of college yells, of dogs barking idiotically through endless nights. It is so bad that a sort of grandeur creeps into it. It drags itself up out of the dark abyss of pish and crawls insanely up the topmost pinnacle of posh. It is rumble and bumble. It is flap and doodle. It is balder and dash. By H.l. Mencken Reminds Sponges Line Soup Yells

All the political seers and sorcerers seem to be agreed that the coming Presidential campaign will be full of bitterness, and that most of it will be caused by religion. I count Prohibition as a part of religion, for it has surely become so in the United States. The Prohibitionists, seeing all their other arguments destroyed by the logic of events, have fallen back upon the mystical doctrine that God is somehow on their side, and that opposing them thus takes on the character of blasphemy. By H.l. Mencken Presidential Religion Bitterness Political Seers

The worst of marriage is that it makes a woman believe that all other men are just as easy to fool. By H.l. Mencken Fool Worst Marriage Makes Woman

If the average man is made in God's image, then such a man as Beethoven or Aristotle is plainly superior to God ... By H.l. Mencken God Beethoven Aristotle Image Man

Off goes the head of the king, and tyranny gives way to freedom. The change seems abysmal. Then, bit by bit, the face of freedom hardens, and by and by it is the old face of tyranny. Then another cycle, and another. But under the play of all these opposites there is something fundamental and permanent - the basic delusion that men may be governed and yet be free. By H.l. Mencken King Head Tyranny Freedom Face

It is not the drinker, but the man who has just stopped drinking, who thinks the world is going to the dogs. By H.l. Mencken Drinker Drinking Dogs Man Stopped

We must think of human progress, not as of something going on in the race in general, but as of something going on in a small minority, perpetually beleaguered in a few walled towns. Now and then the horde of barbarians outside breaks through, and we have an armed effort to halt the process. That is, we have a Reformation, a French Revolution, a war for democracy, a Great Awakening. The minority is decimated and driven to cover. But a few survive - and a few are enough to carry on. By H.l. Mencken Progress General Perpetually Towns Human

Never underestimate the bad taste of the American public By H.l. Mencken American Public Underestimate Bad Taste

But I wonder where we will land if trial judges begin deciding that the fact that a man has committed an atrocious crime is proof sufficient that he is not responsible for his acts. By H.l. Mencken Acts Land Trial Judges Begin

I know of no American who starts from a higher level of aspiration than the journalist ... He plans to be both an artist and a moralist a master of lovely words and merchant of sound ideas. He ends, commonly, as the most depressing jackass of his community that is, if his career goes on to what is called a success. By H.l. Mencken American Journalist Starts Higher Level

Man is a natural polygamist: he always has one woman leading him by the nose, and another hanging on to his coattails. By H.l. Mencken Man Polygamist Nose Coattails Natural

Adultery is the application of democracy to love. By H.l. Mencken Adultery Love Application Democracy

The way to deal with superstition is not to be polite to it, but to tackle it with all arms, and so rout it, cripple it, and make it forever infamous and ridiculous. Is it, perchance, cherished by persons who should know better? Then their folly should be brought out into the light of day, and exhibited there in all its hideousness until they flee from it, hiding their heads in shame. True enough, even a superstitious man has certain inalienable rights. He has a right to harbor and indulge his imbecilities as long as he pleases, provided only he does not try to inflict them upon other men by force. He has a right to argue for them as eloquently as he can, in season and out of season. He has a right to teach them to his children. But certainly he has no right to be protected against the free criticism of those who do not hold them. He has no right to demand that they be treated as sacred. He has no right to preach them without challenge. By H.l. Mencken Arms Cripple Ridiculous Deal Superstition

The only obligation I recognize in this world is my duty to my immediate family By H.l. Mencken Family Obligation Recognize World Duty

It is impossible to think of a man of any actual force and originality, universally recognized as having those qualities, who spent his whole life appraising and describing the work of other men. By H.l. Mencken Originality Universally Qualities Men Impossible

Alimony - the ransom that the happy pay to the devil. By H.l. Mencken Alimony Devil Ransom Happy Pay

I am wholly devoid of public spirit or moral purpose. This is incomprehensible to many men, and they seek to remedy the defect by crediting me with purposes of their own. The only thing I respect is intellectual honesty, of which, of course, intellectual courage is a necessary part. A Socialist who goes to jail for his opinions seems to me a much finer man than the judge who sends him there, though I disagree with all the ideas of the Socialist and agree with some of those of the judge. But though he is fine, the Socialist is nevertheless foolish, for he suffers for what is untrue. If I knew what was true, I'd probably be willing to sweat and strive for it, and maybe even to die for it to the tune of bugle-blasts. But so far I have not found it. By H.l. Mencken Socialist Wholly Devoid Public Spirit

The Book of Revelation has all the authority, in these theological uplands, of military orders in time of war. The people turn to it for light upon all their problems, spiritual and secular. By H.l. Mencken Book Revelation Authority Uplands War

I have often misunderstood men grossly, and I have misrepresented them when I understood them, sacrificing sense to make a phrase. Here, of course, is where even the most conscientious critic often goes aground; he is apt to be an artist before he is a scientist, and the impulse to create something passionately is stronger in him than the impulse to state something accurately. By H.l. Mencken Grossly Sacrificing Phrase Impulse Misunderstood

The Americans are the illegitimate children of the English. By H.l. Mencken English Americans Illegitimate Children

One of the most irrational of all the conventions of modern society is the one to the effect that religious opinions should be respected. ... [This] convention protects them, and so they proceed with their blather unwhipped and almost unmolested, to the great damage of common sense and common decency. that they should have this immunity is an outrage. There is nothing in religious ideas, as a class, to lift them above other ideas. On the contrary, they are always dubious and often quite silly. Nor is there any visible intellectual dignity in theologians. Few of them know anything that is worth knowing, and not many of them are even honest. By H.l. Mencken Respected Irrational Modern Society Effect

All American wars (except the Civil War) have been fought with the odds overwhelmingly in favor of the Americans. In the history of armed combat such affairs as the Mexican and Spanish-American Wars must be ranked, not as wars at all, but as organized assassinations. In the two World Wars, no American faced a bullet until his adversaries had been worn down by years of fighting others. By H.l. Mencken Wars Civil American Fought Odds

It is surely no mere coincidence that the land of the emancipated and enthroned woman is also the land of canned soup, of canned pork and beans, of whole meals in cans, and of everything else ready made. By H.l. Mencken Land Canned Soup Beans Made

I roll out of my couch every morning with the more agreeable expectations. By H.l. Mencken Expectations Roll Couch Morning Agreeable

I think the Negro people should feel secure enough by now to face a reasonable ridicule without terror. I am unalterably opposed to all efforts to put down free speech, whatever the excuse. By H.l. Mencken Negro Terror People Feel Secure

The American people, I am convinced, really detest free speech. At the slightest alarm they are ready and eager to put it down. By H.l. Mencken American People Convinced Speech Detest

The intelligent man, when he pays taxes, certainly does not believe that he is making a prudent and productive investment of his money; on the contrary, he feels that he is being mulcted in an excessive amount for services that, in the main, are useless to him, and that, in substantial part, are downright inimical to him. By H.l. Mencken Man Taxes Money Contrary Main

I am suspicious of all the things that the average people believes. By H.l. Mencken Suspicious Things Average People

An author, like any other so-called artist, is a man in whom the normal vanity of all men is so vastly exaggerated that he finds it a sheer impossibility to hold it in. His over-powering impulse is to gyrate before his fellow men, flapping his wings and emitting defiant yells. This being forbidden by the police of all civilized nations, he takes it out by putting his yells on paper. Such is the thing called self-expression. By H.l. Mencken Author Artist Men Socalled Man

The more noisy Negro leaders, by depicting all whites as natural and implacable enemies to their race, have done it a great disservice. Large numbers of whites who were formerly very friendly to it, and willing to go to great lengths to help it, are now resentful and suspicious. By H.l. Mencken Negro Leaders Race Disservice Whites

School days, I believe, are the unhappiest in the whole span of human existence. They are full of dull, unintelligible tasks, new and unpleasant ordinances, brutal violations of common sense and common decency. It doesn't take a reasonably bright boy long to discover that most of what is rammed into him is nonsense, and that no one really cares very much whether he learns it or not. By H.l. Mencken School Days Existence Unhappiest Span

The aim of New Deals is to exterminate the class of creditors and thrust all men into that of debtors. It is like trying to breedcattle with all cows and no bulls. By H.l. Mencken Deals Debtors Aim Exterminate Class

One is conscious of no brave and noble earnestness in it, of no generalized passion for intellectual and spiritual adventure, of no organized determination to think things out. What is there is a highly self-conscious and insipid correctness, a bloodless respectability submergence of matter in mannerin brief, what is there is the feeble, uninspiring quality of German painting and English music. By H.l. Mencken Adventure Conscious Brave Noble Earnestness

In war the heroes always outnumber the soldiers ten to one. By H.l. Mencken War Heroes Outnumber Soldiers Ten

Why do men delight in work? Fundamentally, I suppose, because there is a sense of relief and pleasure in getting something done - a kind of satisfaction not unlike that which a hen enjoys on laying an egg. By H.l. Mencken Work Men Delight Fundamentally Suppose

Every reader of the Dreiser novels must cherish astounding specimensof awkward, platitudinous marginalia, of whole scenes spoiled by bad writing, of phrases as brackish as so many lumps of sodium hyposulphite. By H.l. Mencken Dreiser Awkward Platitudinous Marginalia Writing

It seems to me that you are better off, as a writer and as an American, in a small town than you'd be in New York. I thoroughly detest New York, though I have to go there very often ... Have you ever noticed that no American writer of any consequence lives in Manhattan? Dreiser tried it (after many years in the Bronx), but finally moved to California. By H.l. Mencken York American Small Town Writer

Man is never honestly the fatalist, nor even the stoic. He fights his fate, often desperately. He is forever entering bold exceptions to the rulings of the bench of gods. This fighting, no doubt, makes for human progress, for it favors the strong and the brave. It also makes for beauty, for lesser men try to escape from a hopeless and intolerable world by creating a more lovely one of their own. By H.l. Mencken Man Fatalist Stoic Honestly Makes

Taxation, for example, is eternally lively; it concerns nine-tenths of us more directly than either smallpox or golf, and has just as much drama in it; moreover, it has been mellowed and made gay by as many gaudy, preposterous theories By H.l. Mencken Taxation Lively Golf Gaudy Preposterous

When we appropriate money from the public funds to pay for vaccinating a horde of negroes, we do not do it because we have any sympathy for them or because we crave their blessings, but simply because we don't want them to be falling ill of smallpox By H.l. Mencken Negroes Blessings Smallpox Money Public

The true bureaucrat is a man of really remarkable talents. He writes a kind of English that is unknown elsewhere in the world, and an almost infinite capacity for forming complicated and unworkable rules. By H.l. Mencken Talents True Bureaucrat Man Remarkable

Hamlet has been played by 5,000 actors, no wonder he is crazy. By H.l. Mencken Actors Hamlet Crazy Played

On the one hand, we may tell the truth, regardless of consequences, and on the other hand we may mellow it and sophisticate it to make it humane and tolerable. By H.l. Mencken Hand Truth Consequences Tolerable Mellow

A Puritan is not against bullfighting because of the pain it gives the bull, but because of the pleasure it gives the spectators. By H.l. Mencken Puritan Bull Spectators Bullfighting Pain

I am, indeed, against all proselyters, whether they be on my side or on some other side. What moves nine-tenths of them, I believe, is simply the certainty of the result that I have just mentioned. Their lofty pretensions are all tosh. The thing they yearn for is the satisfaction of making someone unhappy: that yearning is almost as universal among them as thirst is in dry Congressmen. By H.l. Mencken Side Proselyters Congressmen Mentioned Moves

There comes a day of public ceremonial, and a chance to make a speech ... A million voters with IQs below 60 have their ears glued to the radio. It takes four days' hard work to concoct a speech without a sensible word in it. Next a dam must be opened somewhere. Four dry Senators get drunk and make a painful scene. The Presidential automobile runs over a dog. It rains. By H.l. Mencken Ceremonial Speech Day Public Chance

Man is the yokel par excellence, the booby unmatchable, the king dupe of the cosmos. He is chronically and unescapably deceived, not only by the other animals and by the delusive face of nature herselfby his incomparable talent for searching out and embracing what is false, and for overlooking and denying what is true. By H.l. Mencken Man Excellence Unmatchable Cosmos Yokel

If the American people really tire of democracy and want to make a trial of Fascism, I shall be the last person to object. But if that is their mood, then they had better proceed toward their aim by changing the Constitution and not by forgetting it. By H.l. Mencken Fascism American Object People Tire

One cannot enter a State legislature or a prison for felons without becoming, in some measure, a dubious character. By H.l. Mencken State Measure Character Enter Legislature

When I hear artists or authors making fun of businessmen, I think of a regiment in which the band makes fun of the cooks. By H.l. Mencken Fun Businessmen Cooks Hear Artists

If, after I depart this vale, you ever remember me and have thought to please my ghost, forgive some sinner and wink your eye at some homely girl. By H.l. Mencken Vale Ghost Forgive Girl Depart

Politics, under a democracy, reduces itself to a mere struggle for office by flatterers of the proletariat; even when a superior man prevails at that disgusting game he must prevail at the cost of his self-respect. Not many superior men make the attempt. The average great captain of the rabble, when he is not simply a weeper over irremediable wrongs, is a hypocrite so far gone that he is unconscious of his own hypocrisy.. a slimy fellow, offensive to the nose. By H.l. Mencken Politics Prevails Prevail Democracy Reduces

By profession a biologist, [Thomas Henry Huxley] covered in fact the whole field of the exact sciences, and then bulged through its four fences. Absolutely nothing was uninteresting to him. His curiosity ranged from music to theology and from philosophy to history. He didn't simply know something about everything; he knew a great deal about everything. By H.l. Mencken Thomas Huxley Henry Biologist Covered

The art of politics, under democracy, is simply the art of ringing it. Two branches reveal themselves. There is the art of the demagogue, and there is the art of what may be called, by a shot-gun marriage of Latin and Greek, the demaslave. They are complementary, and both of them are degrading to their practitioners. The demagogue is one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots. The demaslave is one who listens to what these idiots have to say and then pretends that he believes it himself. By H.l. Mencken Art Politics Democracy Simply Ringing

I know a good many men of great learning-that is, men born with an extraordinary eagerness and capacity to acquire knowledge. One and all, they tell me that they can't recall learning anything of any value in school. All that schoolmasters managed to accomplish with them was to test and determine the amount of knowledge that they had already acquired independently-and not infrequently the determination was made clumsily and inaccurately. By H.l. Mencken Men Good Great Learningthat Born

He writes the worst English that I have ever encountered. It reminds me of a string of wet sponges; it reminds me of tattered washing on the line; it reminds me of stale bean soup, of college yells, of dogs barking idiotically through endless nights. It is so bad that a sort of grandeur creeps into it. It drags itself out of the dark abysm of pish, and crawls insanely up the topmost pinnacle of posh. It is rumble and bumble. It is flap and doodle. It is balder and dash.(writing about US President Warren G. Harding) By H.l. Mencken Reminds English Encountered Writes Worst

Good government is that which delivers the citizen from being done out of his life and property too arbitrarily and violently-one that relieves him sufficiently from the barbaric business of guarding them to enable him to engage in gentler, more dignified, and more agreeable undertakings ... By H.l. Mencken Good Gentler Dignified Undertakings Government

I have seen something of the horrors of war, and much too much of the worse horrors of peace. By H.l. Mencken Horrors War Peace Worse

Those tragic comedians, the Chamber of Commerce red hunters, the Women's Christian Temperance Union smellers, the censors of books, the Klan regulators, the Methodist prowlers, the Baptist guardians of sacred vessels-we have the national mentality of a police lieutenant. By H.l. Mencken Chamber Commerce Women Christian Temperance

I devoured hot-dogs in Baltimore 'way back in 1886, and they were then very far from newfangled ... They contained precisely the same rubber, indigestible pseudo-sausages that millions of Americans now eat, and they leaked the same flabby, puerile mustard. Their single point of difference lay in the fact that their covers were honest German Wecke made of wheat-flour baked to crispiness, and not the soggy rolls prevailing today, of ground acorns, plaster-of-Paris, flecks of bath-sponge, and atmospheric air all compact. By H.l. Mencken Baltimore Newfangled Devoured Hotdogs Back

Democracy is only a dream: it should be put in the same category as Arcadia, Santa Claus, and Heaven. By H.l. Mencken Arcadia Santa Claus Heaven Democracy

He marries best who puts it off until it is too late. By H.l. Mencken Late Marries Puts

Man, at his best, remains a sort of one-lunged animal, never completely rounded and perfect, as a cockroach, say, is perfect. By H.l. Mencken Man Perfect Remains Animal Cockroach

How little it takes to make life unbearable: a pebble in the shoe, a cockroach in the spaghetti, a woman's laugh. By H.l. Mencken Unbearable Shoe Spaghetti Laugh Make

The idea that the sole aim of punishment is to prevent crime is obviously grounded upon the theory that crime can be prevented, which is almost as dubious as the notion that poverty can be prevented. By H.l. Mencken Prevented Crime Idea Sole Aim

At eight or nine, I suppose intelligence is no more than a small spot of light on the floor of a large and murky room. By H.l. Mencken Room Suppose Intelligence Small Spot

Misogynist: A man who hates women as much as women hate one another. By H.l. Mencken Misogynist Women Man Hates Hate

Psychotherapy is the theory that the patient will probably get well anyhow and is certainly a damn fool. By H.l. Mencken Psychotherapy Fool Theory Patient Damn

Of all the classes of men, I dislike the most those who make their livings by talking - actors, clergymen, politicians, pedagogues, and so on ... It is almost impossible to imagine a talker who sticks to the facts. Carried away by the sound of his own voice and the applause from the groundlings, he makes inevitably the jump from logic to mere rhetoric. By H.l. Mencken Actors Clergymen Politicians Pedagogues Men

The common man knows exactly what he wants ... and deserves to get it good and hard. By H.l. Mencken Hard Common Man Deserves Good

The first Rotarian was the first man to call John the Baptist Jack. By H.l. Mencken Jack Rotarian John Baptist Man

To argue that the gaps in knowledge which confront the seeker must be filled, not by patient inquiry, but by intuition or revelation, is simply to give ignorance a gratuitous and preposterous dignity. By H.l. Mencken Filled Inquiry Revelation Dignity Argue

And what is a good citizen? Simply one who never says, does or thinks anything that is unusual. Schools are maintained in order to bring this uniformity up to the highest possible point. A school is a hopper into which children are heaved while they are still young and tender; therein they are pressed into certain standard shapes and covered from head to heels with official rubber-stamps. By H.l. Mencken Citizen Good Simply Unusual Point

I am never much interested in the effects of what I write ... I seldom read with any attention the reviews of my ... books. Two times out of three I know something about the reviewer, and in very few cases have I any respect for his judgments. Thus his praise, if he praises me, leaves me unmoved. I can't recall any review that has even influenced me in the slightest. I live in sort of a vacuum, and I suspect that most other writers do, too. It is hard to imagine one of the great ones paying any serious attention to contemporary opinion. By H.l. Mencken Write Interested Effects Attention Books

A church is a place in which gentlemen who have never been to heaven brag about it to persons who will never get there. By H.l. Mencken Church Place Gentlemen Heaven Brag

An idealist is one who, on noticing that a rose smells better than a cabbage, concludes that it makes a better soup. By H.l. Mencken Cabbage Concludes Soup Idealist Noticing

The time must come inevitably when mankind shall surmount the imbecility of religion, as it has surmounted the imbecility of religion's ally, magic. It is impossible to imagine this world being really civilized so long as so much nonsense survives. In even its highest forms religion embraces concepts that run counter to all common sense. It can be defended only by making assumptions and adopting rules of logic that are never heard of in any other field of human thinking. By H.l. Mencken Imbecility Magic Religion Ally Time

A newspaper is a device for making the ignorant more ignorant and the crazy crazier. By H.l. Mencken Crazier Ignorant Newspaper Device Making

The whole drift of our law is toward the absolute prohibition of all ideas that diverge in the slightest form from the accepted platitudes, and behind that drift of law there is a far more potent force of growing custom, and under that custom there is a natural philosophy which erects conformity into the noblest of virtues and the free functioning of personality into a capital crime against society. By H.l. Mencken Drift Law Custom Platitudes Society

To be in love is merely to be in a state of perceptual anesthesia - to mistake an ordinary young man for a Greek god or an ordinary young woman for a goddess. By H.l. Mencken Ordinary Young Greek Anesthesia Goddess

As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron. By H.l. Mencken Perfected Represents Closely People Democracy

If women believed in their husbands they would be a good deal happier and also a good deal more foolish. By H.l. Mencken Good Deal Foolish Women Believed

But the whole thing, after all, may be put very simply. I believe that it is better to tell the truth than to lie. I believe that it is better to be free than to be a slave. And I believe that it is better to know than be ignorant. By H.l. Mencken Thing Simply Put Lie Truth

I believe that it is better to tell the truth than a lie. I believe it is better to be free than to be a slave. And I believe it is better to know than to be ignorant. By H.l. Mencken Lie Truth Slave Free Ignorant

Penetrating so many secrets, we cease to believe in the unknowable. But there it sits nevertheless, calmly licking its chops By H.l. Mencken Penetrating Secrets Unknowable Cease Calmly

Clergyman: A ticket speculator outside the gates of Heaven. By H.l. Mencken Clergyman Heaven Ticket Speculator Gates

Some time ago a publisher told me that there are four kinds of books that seldom, if ever, lose money in the United Statesfirst,murder stories; secondly, novels in which the heroine is forcibly overcome by the hero; thirdly, volumes on spiritualism, occultism and other such claptrap, and fourthly, books on Lincoln. By H.l. Mencken Thirdly Lincoln United Statesfirstmurder Books

When I mount the scaffold at last these will be my farewell words to the sheriff: Say what you will against me when I am gone, but don't forget to add, in common justice, that I was never converted to anything. By H.l. Mencken Sheriff Add Justice Mount Scaffold

The thing constantly overlooked by those hopefuls who talk about abolishing war is that it is by no means an evidence of decay but rather a proof of health and vigor. By H.l. Mencken Vigor Thing Constantly Overlooked Hopefuls

Happiness, like health, is probably also only a passing accident. For a moment or two the organism is irritated so little that it is not conscious of it; for the duration of that moment it is happy. Thus a hog is always happier than a man, and a bacillus is happier than a hog By H.l. Mencken Happiness Health Accident Passing Moment

The storm center of lawlessness in every American State is the State Capitol. It is there that the worst crimes are committed; it is there that lawbreaking attains to the estate and dignity of a learned profession; it is there that contempt for the laws is engendered, fostered, and spread broadcast. By H.l. Mencken State Capitol American Storm Center

Yet the same thing happens to the notions of morality. They are devised, at the start, as measures of expediency, and then given divine sanction in order to lend them authority. By H.l. Mencken Morality Thing Notions Devised Start

The New Deal began, like the Salvation Army, by promising to save humanity. It ended, again like the Salvation Army, by running flop-houses and disturbing the peace. By H.l. Mencken Army Salvation Deal Began Humanity

Sometimes the idiots outvote the sensible people. By H.l. Mencken People Idiots Outvote

There is, in fact, nothing about religious opinions that entitles them to any more respect than other opinions get. On the contrary, they tend to be noticeably silly. By H.l. Mencken Fact Opinions Religious Entitles Respect

A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin. By H.l. Mencken Flowers Coffin Cynic Man Smells

Dachshund: A half-a-dog high and a dog-and-a-half long. By H.l. Mencken Dachshund Long High

Women have a hard time of it in this world. They are oppressed by man-made laws, man-made social customs, masculine egoism, the delusion of masculine superiority. Their one comfort is the assurance that, even though it may be impossible to prevail against man, it is always possible to enslave and torture a man. By H.l. Mencken Women World Hard Time Man

Most people want security in this world, not liberty. By H.l. Mencken World Liberty People Security

[Science] must be amoral by its very nature: The minute it begins separating facts into the two categories of good ones and bad ones it ceases to be science and becomes a mere nuisance, like theology. By H.l. Mencken Science Nature Nuisance Theology Amoral

All the great enterprises of the world are run by a few smart men: their aides and associates run down by rapid stages to the level of sheer morons. Everyone knows that this is true of government, but we often forget that it is equally true of private undertakings. In the average great bank, or railroad, or other corporation the burden of management lies upon a small group. The rest are ciphers. By H.l. Mencken Run Men Morons Enterprises World

One yearns unspeakably for a composer who gives out his pair of honest themes, and then develops them unashamed, and then hangs a brisk coda to them, and then shuts up. By H.l. Mencken Themes Unashamed Yearns Unspeakably Composer

Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy. By H.l. Mencken Puritanism Happy Haunting Fear

The harsh, useful things of the world, from pulling teeth to digging potatoes, are best done by men who are as starkly sober as so many convicts in the death-house, but the lovely and useless things, the charming and exhilarating things, are best done by men with, as the phrase is, a few sheets in the wind. By H.l. Mencken Things Men Harsh World Potatoes

In Baltimore, soft crabs are always fried (or broiled) in the altogether, with maybe a small jock-strap of bacon added. By H.l. Mencken Baltimore Soft Fried Broiled Altogether

One of the main purposes of laws in a democratic society is to put burdens upon intelligence and reduce it to impotence. Ostensibly, their aim is to penalize anti-social acts; actually their aim is to penalize heretical opinions. At least ninety-five Americans out of every 100 believe that this process is honest and even laudable; it is practically impossible to convince them that there is anything evil in it. In other words, they cannot grasp the concept of liberty. By H.l. Mencken Impotence Aim Main Purposes Laws

He sailed through American history like a steel ship loaded with monoliths of granite. By H.l. Mencken American Granite Sailed History Steel

Children born to-day may see the beginnings of a genuine state church in the Republic, with a hierarchy of live wires and a purely American theology. I regret that I am too old to wait for it, for if it comes it will be a lulu. By H.l. Mencken Republic American Children Theology Born

Socialism, Puritanism, Philistinism, Christianity - he saw them all as allotropic forms of democracy, as variations upon the endless struggle of quantity against quality, of the weak and timorous against the strong and enterprising, of the botched against the fit. By H.l. Mencken Puritanism Philistinism Christianity Socialism Democracy

Thanksgiving Day is a day devoted by persons with inflammatory rheumatism to thanking a loving Father that it is not hydrophobia. By H.l. Mencken Day Father Thanksgiving Hydrophobia Devoted

I write in order to attain that feeling of tension relieved and function achieved, which a cow enjoys on giving milk. By H.l. Mencken Achieved Milk Write Order Attain

All the benefit that a New Yorker gets out of Kansas is no more than what he might get out of Saskatchewan, the Argentine pampas, of Siberia. But New York to a Kansan is not only a place where he may get drunk, look at dirty shows and buy bogus antiques; it is also a place where he may enforce his dunghill ideas upon his betters. By H.l. Mencken Saskatchewan Siberia Yorker Kansas Argentine

All that the YMCA's horse and rings really accomplished was to fill me with an ineradicable distaste, not only for Christian endeavor in all its forms, but also for every variety of calisthenics, so that I still begrudge the trifling exertion needs to climb in and out of the bathtub, and hate all sports as rabidly as a person who likes sports hates common sense. By H.l. Mencken Ymca Christian Sports Distaste Forms

I hope I need not confess that a large part of my stock in trade consists of platitudes rescued from the cobwebbed shelves of yesterday ... This borrowing and refurbishing of shop-worn goods, as a matter of fact, is the invariable habit of traders in ideas, at all times and everywhere. It is not, however, that all the conceivable human notions have been thought out; it is simply, to be quite honest, that the sort of men who volunteer to think out new ones seldom, if ever, have wind enough for a full day's work. By H.l. Mencken Yesterday Hope Confess Large Part

Everyman is thoroughly happy twice in his life, just after he has met his first love, and just after he has left his last one. By H.l. Mencken Everyman Life Love Happy Met

All successful newpapers are ceaselessly querulous and bellicose. They never defend anyone or anything if they can help it; if the job is forced upon them, they tackle it by denouncing someone or something else. By H.l. Mencken Bellicose Successful Newpapers Ceaselessly Querulous

When somebody says it's not about the money, it's about the money. By H.l. Mencken Money

Thus she is almost always a failure as a lawyer, for the law requires only an armament of hollow phrases and stereotyped formulae, and a mental habit which puts these phantasms above sense, truth and justice; and she is almost always a failure in business, for business, in the main, is so foul a compound of trivialities and rogueries that her sense of intellectual integrity revolts against it. By H.l. Mencken Business Failure Sense Lawyer Formulae

The best teacher is not the one who knows most but the one who is most capable of reducing knowledge to that simple compound of the obvious and wonderful. By H.l. Mencken Wonderful Teacher Capable Reducing Knowledge

He slept more than any other president, whether by day or by night. Nero fiddled, but Coolidge only snored. By H.l. Mencken President Night Slept Day Coolidge

Here the only genuine conflict is between true believers. Of a given text in Holy Writ one faction may say this thing and another that, but both agree unreservedly that the text itself is impeccable, and neither in the midst of the most violent disputation would venture to accuse the other of doubt. To call a man a doubter in these parts is equal to accusing him of cannibalism. Even the infidel Scopes himself is not charged with any such infamy. By H.l. Mencken Believers Genuine Conflict True Text

The fact is that liberty, in any true sense, is a concept that lies quite beyond the reach of the inferior man's mind. And no wonder, for genuine liberty demands of its votaries a quality he lacks completely, and that is courage. The man who loves it must be willing to fight for it; blood, said Jefferson, is its natural manure. Liberty means self-reliance, it means resolution, it means the capacity for doing without ... the average man doesn't want to be free. He wants to be safe. By H.l. Mencken Liberty Sense Mind Man Fact

In the United States ... politics is purged of all menace, all sinister quality, all genuine significance, and stuffed with such gorgeous humors, such inordinate farce that one comes to the end of a campaign with one's ribs loose, and ready for King Lear, or a hanging, or a course of medical journals. By H.l. Mencken States United Lear King Politics

By what route do otherwise sane men come to believe such palpable nonsense? How is it possible for a human brain to be divided into two insulated halves, one functioning normally, naturallyand even brilliantly, and the other capable only of such ghastly balderdash which issues from the minds of Baptist evangelists? By H.l. Mencken Nonsense Route Sane Men Palpable

The pedant and the priest have always been the most expert of logicians and the most diligent disseminators of nonsense and worse. By H.l. Mencken Worse Pedant Priest Expert Logicians

When you sympathize with a married woman you either make two enemies or gain one wife and one friend. By H.l. Mencken Friend Sympathize Married Woman Make

I believe in the complete freedom of thought and speech - alike for the humblest man and the mightiest, and in the utmost freedom of conduct that is consistent with living in organizedsociety. By H.l. Mencken Freedom Speech Alike Mightiest Organizedsociety

The genuine music lover may accept the carnal husk of opera to get at the kernel of actual music within, but that is no sign that he approves the carnal husk or enjoys gnawing through it. By H.l. Mencken Carnal Husk Music Genuine Lover

The average man does not get pleasure out of an idea because he thinks it is true; he thinks it is true because he gets pleasure out of it. By H.l. Mencken Pleasure True Average Man Idea

Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats. By H.l. Mencken Tempted Times Hands Hoist Flag

It is the invariable habit of bureaucracies, at all times and everywhere, to assume ... that every citizen is a criminal. Their one apparent purpose, pursued with a relentless and furious diligence, is to convert the assumption into a fact. They hunt endlessly for proofs, and, when proofs are lacking, for mere suspicions. The moment they become aware of a definite citizen, John Doe, seeking what is his right under the law, they begin searching feverishly for an excuse for withholding it from him. By H.l. Mencken Bureaucracies Assume Criminal Invariable Habit

There are no ugly cigars, only ugly smokers. By H.l. Mencken Cigars Smokers Ugly

The worst government is often the most moral. One composed of cynics is often very tolerant and humane. But when fanatics are on top there is no limit to oppression. By H.l. Mencken Moral Worst Government Humane Oppression

The great masses of men, though theoretically free, are seen to submit supinely to oppression and exploitation of a hundred abhorrent sorts. Have they no means of resistance? Obviously they have. The worst tyrant, even under democratic plutocracy, has but one throat to slit. The moment the majority decided to overthrow him he would be overthrown. But the majority lacks the resolution; it cannot imagine taking the risks. By H.l. Mencken Men Free Sorts Great Masses

I have long been convinced that the idea of liberty is abhorrent to most human beings. What they want is security, not freedom. Thus it seldom causes any public indignation when an enterprising tyrant claps down on one of his enemies. To most men it seems a natural proceeding. By H.l. Mencken Long Convinced Idea Liberty Abhorrent

If this is so, why should any man bother about moral rules and regulations? Why should any man conform to laws formulated by a people whose outlook on the universe probably differed diametrically from his own? Why should any man obey a regulation which is denounced, by his common-sense, as a hodge-podge of absurdities, and why should he model his whole life upon ideals invented to serve the temporary needs of a forgotten race of some past age? These questions Nietzsche asked himself. His conclusion was a complete rejection of all fixed codes of morality, and with them of all gods, messiahs, prophets, saints, popes, By H.l. Mencken Man Bother Moral Rules Nietzsche

It takes a long while for a naturally trustful person to reconcile himself to the idea that after all God will not help him By H.l. Mencken God Long Naturally Trustful Person

No professional politician is ever actually in favor of public economy. It is his implacable enemy, and he knows it. All professional politicians are dedicated wholeheartedly to waste and corruption. They are the enemies of every decent man. By H.l. Mencken Economy Professional Favor Public Enemy

Every man sees in his relatives, and especially in his cousins, a series of grotesque caricatures of himself. By H.l. Mencken Relatives Cousins Man Series Grotesque

Well, I tell you, if I have been wrong in my agnosticism, when I die I'll walk up to God in a manly way and say, Sir, I made an honest mistake. By H.l. Mencken Sir God Agnosticism Mistake Wrong

I believe there is a limit beyond which free speech cannot go, but it's a limit that's very seldom mentioned. It's the point where free speech begins to collide with the right to privacy. I don't think there are any other conditions to free speech. I've got a right to say and believe anything I please, but I haven't got a right to press it on anybody else ... Nobody's got a right to be a nuisance to his neighbors. By H.l. Mencken Limit Free Speech Mentioned Seldom

A metaphysician is one who, when you remark that twice two makes four, demands to know what you mean by twice, what by two, what by makes, and what by four. For asking such questions metaphysicians are supported in oriental luxury in the universities, and respected as educated and intelligent men. By H.l. Mencken Makes Demands Remark Metaphysician Universities

Whenever a husband and a wife begin to discuss their marriage they are giving evidence at a coroner's inquest. By H.l. Mencken Inquest Husband Wife Begin Discuss

There is no possibility whatsoever of reconciling science and theology, at least in Christendom. Either Jesus arose from the dead or He didn't. If he did, then Christianity becomes plausible; if He did not, then it is sheer nonsense. I defy any genuine scientists to say that he believes in the Resurrection, or indeed in any other cardinal dogma of the Christian system. By H.l. Mencken Christendom Theology Possibility Whatsoever Reconciling

What ails the truth is that it is mainly uncomfortable, and often dull. The human mind seeks something more amusing, and more caressing. By H.l. Mencken Uncomfortable Dull Ails Truth Amusing

For me to go into politics would be like sending a virgin into a house of ill-repute. By H.l. Mencken Illrepute Politics Sending Virgin House

Capitalism under democracy has a further advantage: its enemies, even when it is attacked, are scattered and weak, and it is usually easily able to array one half of them against the other half, and thus dispose of both. By H.l. Mencken Half Capitalism Advantage Enemies Attacked

All [zoos] actually offer to the public in return for the taxes spent upon them is a form of idle and witless amusement, compared to which a visit to a penitentiary, or even to a State legislature in session, is informing, stimulating and ennobling. By H.l. Mencken Zoos State Amusement Compared Penitentiary

Only to often on meeting scientific men, even those of genuine distiction, one finds that they are dull fellows and very stupid. They know one thing to excess; they know nothing else. Pursuing facts too doggedly and unimaginatively, they miss all the charming things that are not facts ... Too much learning, like too little learning, is an unpleasant and dangerous thing. By H.l. Mencken Men Distiction Stupid Meeting Scientific

Friendship is a common belief in the same fallacies, mountebanks and hobgoblins. By H.l. Mencken Friendship Fallacies Mountebanks Hobgoblins Common

How far the gentlemen of dark complexion will get with their independence, now that they have declared it, I don't know. There are serious difficulties in their way. The vast majority of people of their race are but two or three inches removed from gorillas: it will be a sheer impossibility, for a long, long while, to interest them in anything above pork-chops and bootleg gin. By H.l. Mencken Independence Gentlemen Dark Complexion Declared

Of all the human qualities, the one I admire the most is competence. A tailor who is really able to cut and fit a coat seems to me an admirable man, and by the same token a university professor who knows little or nothing of the thing he presumes to teach seems to me to be a fraud and a rascal. By H.l. Mencken Qualities Competence Human Admire Man

It takes no more actual sagacity to carry on the everyday hawking and haggling of the world, or to ladle out its normal doses of bad medicine and worse law, than it takes to operate a taxicab or fry a pan of fish. By H.l. Mencken World Law Fish Actual Sagacity

The man who boasts that he habitually tells the truth is simply a man with no respect for it. It is not a thing to be thrown about loosely, like small change; it is something to be cherished and hoarded and disbursed only when absolutely necessary. The smallest atom of truth represents some man's bitter toil and agony; for every ponderable chunk of it there is a brave truth-seeker's grave upon some lonely ash-dump and a soul roasting in Hell. By H.l. Mencken Man Boasts Habitually Simply Respect

If what I may believe - about gall-stones, the Constitution, castor oil, or God - is conditioned by law, then I am not a free man. By H.l. Mencken Constitution God Gallstones Castor Oil

Los Angeles: nineteen suburbs in search of a metropolis. By H.l. Mencken Angeles Los Nineteen Metropolis Suburbs

The lunatic fringe wags the underdog. By H.l. Mencken Underdog Lunatic Fringe Wags

College football would be much more interesting if the faculty played instead of the students, and even more interesting if the trustees played. There would be a great increase in broken arms, legs, and necks, and simultaneously an appreciable diminution in the loss of humanity. By H.l. Mencken Interesting Played College Students Football

No form of liberty is worth a darn [sic] which doesn't give us the right to do wrong now and then. By H.l. Mencken Sic Darn Form Liberty Worth

Five years of Prohibition have had, at least, this one benign effect: they have completely disposed of all the favorite arguments of the Prohibitionists. None of the great boons and usufructs that were to follow the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment has come to pass. There is not less drunkenness in the Republic, but more. There is not less crime, but more. There is not less insanity, but more. The cost of government is not smaller, but vastly greater. Respect for law has not increased, but diminished. By H.l. Mencken Prohibitionists Prohibition Effect Years Benign

People do not expect to find chastity in a whorehouse. Why, then, do they expect to find honesty and humanity in government, a congeries of institutions whose modus operandi consists of lying, cheating, stealing, and if need be, murdering those who resist? By H.l. Mencken People Whorehouse Expect Find Cheating

Some boys go to college and eventually succeed in getting out. Others go to college and never succeed in getting out. The latter are called professors. By H.l. Mencken College Succeed Boys Eventually Professors

The great secret of happiness in love is to be glad that the other fellow married her. By H.l. Mencken Great Secret Happiness Love Glad

This book came to me for review, but when I observed its count of pages I quietly dropped it behind the piano. By H.l. Mencken Review Piano Book Observed Count

One of the laudable by-products of the Freudian quackery is the discovery that lying, in most cases, is involuntary and inevitablethat the liar can no more avoid it than he can avoid blinking his eyes when a light flashes or jumping when a bomb goes off behind him. By H.l. Mencken Freudian Avoid Lying Cases Laudable

The fact is that the average man's love of liberty is nine-tenths imaginary, exactly like his love of sense, justice and truth. By H.l. Mencken Love Imaginary Sense Justice Truth

The believing mind reaches its perihelion in the so-called Liberals. They believe in each and every quack who sets up his booth inthe fairgrounds, including the Communists. The Communists have some talents too, but they always fall short of believing in the Liberals. By H.l. Mencken Liberals Communists Mind Reaches Perihelion

The State is not force alone. It depends upon the credulity of man quite as much as upon his docility. Its aim is not merely to make him obey, but also to make him want to obey. By H.l. Mencken State Force Make Obey Docility

No one in this world, so far as I know - and I have searched the records for years, and employed agents to help me - has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. By H.l. Mencken World Years People Searched Records

The Jews could be put down very plausible as the most unpleasant race ever heard of. As commonly encountered they lack any of the qualities that mark the civilized man: courage, dignity, incorruptibility, ease, confidence. They have vanity without pride, voluptuousness without taste, and learning without wisdom. Their fortitude such as it is, is wasted upon puerile objects, and their charity is mainly a form of display. By H.l. Mencken Jews Put Plausible Unpleasant Race

Every great wave of popular passion that rolls up on the prairies is dashed to spray when it strikes the hard rocks of Manhattan. By H.l. Mencken Manhattan Great Wave Popular Passion

Pedagogues: More than any other class of blind leaders of the blind they are responsible for the degrading standardization which now afflicts the American people. By H.l. Mencken Pedagogues American Blind People Class

New York: A third-rate Babylon. By H.l. Mencken York Babylon Thirdrate

As I grow older I am unpleasantly impressed by the fact that giving each human being but one life is a bad scheme. By H.l. Mencken Scheme Grow Older Unpleasantly Impressed

As the arteries grow hard, the heart grows soft. By H.l. Mencken Hard Soft Arteries Heart Grow

Free speech is too dangerous to a democracy to be permitted By H.l. Mencken Free Permitted Speech Dangerous Democracy

No article of faith is proof against the disintegrating effects of increasing information; one might almost describe the acquirement of knowledge as a process of disillusion. By H.l. Mencken Information Disillusion Article Faith Proof

The truth, indeed, is something that mankind, for some mysterious reason, instinctively dislikes. Every man who tries to tell it is unpopular, and even when, by the sheer strength of his case, he prevails, he is put down as a scoundrel. By H.l. Mencken Truth Mankind Reason Instinctively Dislikes

The late William Jennings Bryan, L.L.D., always had one great advantage in controversy; he was never burdened with an understanding of his opponent's case. By H.l. Mencken Bryan William Jennings Controversy Case

He believed that there was need in the world for a class freed from the handicap of law and morality, a class acutely adaptable and immoral; a class bent on achieving, not the equality of all men, but the production, at the top, of the superman. By H.l. Mencken Class Morality Immoral Achieving Men

The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all; it is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed a standard citizenry, to put down dissent and originality. By H.l. Mencken Level Citizenry Originality Aim Public

Poetry is a comforting piece of fiction set to more or less lascivious music. By H.l. Mencken Poetry Music Comforting Piece Fiction

Each party steals so many articles of faith from the other, and the candidates spend so much time making each other's speeches, that by the time election day is past there is nothing much to do save turn the sitting rascals out and let a new gang in. By H.l. Mencken Time Speeches Party Steals Articles

Science is unflinchingly deterministic, and it has begun to force its determinism into morals. On some shining tomorrow a psychoanalyst may be put into the box to prove that perjury is simply a compulsion neurosis, like beating time with the foot at a concert or counting the lampposts along the highway. By H.l. Mencken Science Deterministic Morals Unflinchingly Begun

DebussyA pretty girl with one blue eye and one brown one. By H.l. Mencken Debussya Pretty Girl Blue Eye

I believe that any man who takes the liberty of another into his keeping is bound to become a tyrant, and that any man who yields up his liberty, in however slight the measure, is bound to become a slave. By H.l. Mencken Man Bound Tyrant Measure Slave

A man is called a good fellow for doing things which, if done by a woman, would land her in a lunatic asylum. By H.l. Mencken Woman Asylum Man Called Good

Once apparently the chief concern and masterpiece of the gods, the human race now begins to bear the aspect of an accidental by-product of their vast, inscrutable and probably nonsensical operations. By H.l. Mencken Gods Vast Inscrutable Operations Apparently

There are some people who read too much: the bibliobibuli. I know some who are constantly drunk on books, as other men are drunk on whiskey or religion. They wander through this most diverting and stimulating of worlds in a haze, seeing nothing and hearing nothing. By H.l. Mencken Bibliobibuli People Read Drunk Books

Explanations exist; they have existed for all time; there is always a well-known solution to every human problem - neat, plausible, and wrong. By H.l. Mencken Neat Plausible Explanations Exist Time

Man's objection to love is that it dies hard; woman's, that when it is dead, it stays dead. By H.l. Mencken Dead Woman Man Hard Objection

Next to the semi-colon, quotation marks seem to be the chief butts of reformatory ardor. By H.l. Mencken Semicolon Quotation Ardor Marks Chief

A Puritan is someone who is desperately afraid that, somewhere, someone might be having a good time. By H.l. Mencken Puritan Time Desperately Afraid Good

Elections are futures markets in stolen property. By H.l. Mencken Elections Property Futures Markets Stolen

To fill the young of the species with knowledge and awaken their intelligence ... Nothing could be further from the truth. The aim ... is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to put down dissent and originality. That is its aim in the United States ... and that is its aim everywhere else.(writing of public education in the April 1924 The American Mercury) By H.l. Mencken Intelligence Aim Fill Young Species

All of the American's foreign wars have been fought with foes either too weak to resist them or too heavily engaged elsewhere to make more than a half-hearted attempt. The combats with Mexico and Spain were not wars; they were simply lynchings. By H.l. Mencken American Attempt Wars Foreign Fought

[Art is] an attempt to escape from life. By H.l. Mencken Art Life Attempt Escape

I believe that all government is evil, and that trying to improve it is largely a waste of time. By H.l. Mencken Evil Time Government Improve Largely

The book of Genesis, a farrago of nonsense so wholly absurd that even Sunday-school scholars have to be threatened with Hell to make them accept it. By H.l. Mencken Genesis Sundayschool Hell Book Farrago

At the end of one millennium and nine centuries of Christianity, it remains an unshakable assumption of the law in all Christian countries and of the moral judgement of Christians everywhere that if a man and a woman, entering a room together, close the door behind them, the man will come out sadder and the woman wiser. By H.l. Mencken Christianity Man Woman Christian Christians

The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all. By H.l. Mencken Stopped Scoundrels Trouble Fighting Human

The penalty for laughing in a courtroom is six months in jail; if it were not for this penalty, the jury would never hear the evidence. By H.l. Mencken Penalty Jail Evidence Laughing Courtroom

Anyhow, the hole in the donut is at least digestible. By H.l. Mencken Digestible Hole Donut

My belief in free speech is so profound that I am seldom tempted to deny it to the other fellow. Nor do I make any effort to differentiate between the other fellow right and that other fellow wrong, for I am convinced that free speech is worth nothing unless it includes a full franchise to be foolish and even ... malicious. By H.l. Mencken Fellow Speech Free Belief Profound

Watching two women kiss is like watching two prizefighters shake hands. By H.l. Mencken Watching Hands Women Kiss Prizefighters

That it should still be necessary, at this late stage in the senility of the human race to argue that women have a fine and fluent intelligence is surely an eloquent proof of the defective observation, incurable prejudice, and general imbecility of their lords and masters. By H.l. Mencken Observation Incurable Prejudice Masters Late

If x is the population of the United States and y is the degree of imbecility of the average American, then democracy is the theory that x times y is less than y By H.l. Mencken American United States Population Degree

It was morality that burned the books of the ancient sages, and morality that halted the free inquiry of the Golden Age and substituted for it the credulous imbecility of the Age of Faith. It was a fixed moral code and a fixed theology which robbed the human race of a thousand years by wasting them upon alchemy, heretic-burning , witchcraft and sacerdotalism. By H.l. Mencken Age Morality Faith Golden Sages

Religion is "so absurd that it comes close to imbecility." By H.l. Mencken Religion Imbecility Absurd Close

The instant I reach Heaven, I'm going to speak to God very sharply. By H.l. Mencken Heaven God Sharply Instant Reach

What lay at the bottom of their savagery, of course, was their idiotic belief in Calvinism - beyond question the most brutal and barbaric theology ever subscribed to by mortal man, whether in or out of the African bush. By H.l. Mencken Calvinism African Savagery Man Bush

What I admire most in any man is a serene spirit, a steady freedom from moral indignation, and all-embracing tolerancein brief,what is commonly called sportsmanship. By H.l. Mencken