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Home
Authors
H. L. Mencken
American
Writer
About the author
Conscience is a mother-in-law whose visit never ends.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Mother
#Conscience
#Visit
The basic fact about human existence is not that it is a tragedy, but that it is a bore. It is not so much a war as an endless standing in line.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#War
#Tragedy
#Fact
#Existence
The capacity of human beings to bore one another seems to be vastly greater than that of any other animal.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
The chief contribution of Protestantism to human thought is its massive proof that God is a bore.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#God
#Thought
#Proof
#Protestantism
The chief value of money lies in the fact that one lives in a world in which it is overestimated.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#World
#Money
#Value
#Fact
#Lies
The common argument that crime is caused by poverty is a kind of slander on the poor.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Crime
#Poor
#Argument
#Poverty
#Slander
The cynics are right nine times out of ten.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Right
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.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Honor
#Man
#Act
#Difference
The most costly of all follies is to believe passionately in the palpably not true. It is the chief occupation of mankind.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Occupation
#Mankind
Temptation is an irresistible force at work on a movable body.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Work
#Temptation
#Body
#Force
The older I grow the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Age
#Wisdom
#Doctrine
#Distrust
Say what you will about the ten commandments, you must always come back to the pleasant fact that there are only ten of them.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Will
#Fact
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.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Fear
#Man
#Safety
#Inexplicable
#Emotion
The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out... without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, intolerable.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Man
#Government
Temptation is a woman's weapon and man's excuse.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Man
#Woman
#Temptation
The only cure for contempt is counter-contempt.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Cure
#Contempt
Self-respect: the secure feeling that no one, as yet, is suspicious.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Feeling
#Self
The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Humanity
Puritanism. The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Fear
#May
Before a man speaks it is always safe to assume that he is a fool. After he speaks, it is seldom necessary to assume it.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Man
#Fool
As the arteries grow hard, the heart grows soft.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Heart
Archbishop - A Christian ecclesiastic of a rank superior to that attained by Christ.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Christian
#Rank
Nine times out of ten, in the arts as in life, there is actually no truth to be discovered; there is only error to be exposed.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Life
#Truth
#Error
All men are frauds. The only difference between them is that some admit it. I myself deny it.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Men
#Difference
All government, of course, is against liberty.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Liberty
#Government
Alimony - the ransom that the happy pay to the devil.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Devil
Adultery is the application of democracy to love.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Love
#Democracy
#Adultery
Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Democracy
#Ignorance
#Belief
#Wisdom
A society made up of individuals who were all capable of original thought would probably be unendurable.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Thought
#Society
Communism, like any other revealed religion, is largely made up of prophecies.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Religion
#Communism
A professor must have a theory as a dog must have fleas.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Theory
#Fleas
A politician is an animal which can sit on a fence and yet keep both ears to the ground.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
A newspaper is a device for making the ignorant more ignorant and the crazy crazier.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
A national political campaign is better than the best circus ever heard of, with a mass baptism and a couple of hangings thrown in.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
A man may be a fool and not know it, but not if he is married.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#May
#Man
#Fool
A man always remembers his first love with special tenderness, but after that he begins to bunch them.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Love
#Man
#First
#First love
#Tenderness
A judge is a law student who marks his own examination papers.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Law
#Examination
A good politician is quite as unthinkable as an honest burglar.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Man
#Flowers
#Cynic
A church is a place in which gentlemen who have never been to heaven brag about it to persons who will never get there.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Will
#Church
#Heaven
#Gentlemen
A bad man is the sort who weeps every time he speaks of a good woman.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Time
#Man
#Woman
A Sunday school is a prison in which children do penance for the evil conscience of their parents.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Children
#Evil
#School
#Prison
#Parents
#Conscience
Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Love
#Imagination
#Intelligence
Nevertheless, it is even harder for the average ape to believe that he has descended from man.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Man
Most people want security in this world, not liberty.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Want
#Security
#People
#World
#Liberty
Most people are unable to write because they are unable to think, and they are unable to think because they congenitally lack the equipment to do so, just as they congenitally lack the equipment to fly over the moon.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#People
#Moon
Morality is the theory that every human act must be either right or wrong, and that 99 % of them are wrong.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Right
#Wrong
#Act
#Morality
#Theory
Men have a much better time of it than women. For one thing, they marry later; for another thing, they die earlier.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Time
#Men
#Women
Marriage is a wonderful institution, but who would want to live in an institution?
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Want
#Marriage
Man weeps to think that he will die so soon; woman, that she was born so long ago.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Will
#Man
#Woman
Bachelors know more about women than married men; if they didn't they'd be married too.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Women
#Bachelors
Man is a beautiful machine that works very badly.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Man
#Machine
Democracy is also a form of worship. It is the worship of Jackals by Jackasses.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Democracy
#Worship
Love is the delusion that one woman differs from another.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Love
#Woman
#Delusion
Love is like war: easy to begin but very hard to stop.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Love
Love is an emotion that is based on an opinion of women that is impossible for those who have had any experience with them.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Love
#Experience
#Women
#Opinion
#Emotion
Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Want
#People
#Democracy
#Theory
Man is always looking for someone to boast to; woman is always looking for a shoulder to put her head on.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Man
#Woman
Democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey cage.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Art
#Democracy
#Science
#Running
Life is a dead-end street.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Life
Don't overestimate the decency of the human race.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Race
#Decency
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.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Time
#Nothing
#Day
#Past
#Faith
#Party
Every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
Every man is his own hell.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Man
#Hell
Every man sees in his relatives, and especially in his cousins, a series of grotesque caricatures of himself.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Man
#Relatives
Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Man
Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#May
#Belief
#Faith
Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Man
#Government
Democracy is only a dream: it should be put in the same category as Arcadia, Santa Claus, and Heaven.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Democracy
#Heaven
#Santa claus
Husbands never become good; they merely become proficient.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Husbands
It doesn't take a majority to make a rebellion; it takes only a few determined leaders and a sound cause.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Leaders
#Cause
#Sound
#Majority
#Rebellion
Injustice is relatively easy to bear; what sting is justice.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Injustice
In war the heroes always outnumber the soldiers ten to one.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#War
#Heroes
#Soldiers
In this world of sin and sorrow there is always something to be thankful for; as for me, I rejoice that I am not a Republican.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#World
#Republican
#Sorrow
#Sin
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.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Truth
#Lie
In the duel of sex woman fights from a dreadnought and man from an open raft.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Man
#Woman
#Open
#Sex
Immorality: the morality of those who are having a better time.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Time
#Morality
I believe that all government is evil, and that trying to improve it is largely a waste of time.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Time
#Evil
#Government
#Trying
#Waste
Poetry has done enough when it charms, but prose must also convince.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Prose
#Poetry
Platitude: an idea (a) that is admitted to be true by everyone, and (b) that is not true.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Idea
Opera in English is, in the main, just about as sensible as baseball in Italian.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Baseball
#English
#Opera
One may no more live in the world without picking up the moral prejudices of the world than one will be able to go to hell without perspiring.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Will
#World
#May
#Hell
Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Public
#American
#Taste
No one in this world has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#People
#Public
#World
#Money
#Office
#Intelligence
No matter how long he lives, no man ever becomes as wise as the average woman of forty-eight.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Man
#Woman
No matter how happily a woman may be married, it always pleases her to discover that there is a nice man who wishes that she were not.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#May
#Man
#Woman
#Wishes
No married man is genuinely happy if he has to drink worse whisky than he used to drink when he was single.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#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.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Will
#Woman
#HusbTruth
War will never cease until babies begin to come into the world with larger cerebrums and smaller adrenal glands.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Will
#World
#War
#Babies
An idealist is one who, on noticing that roses smell better than a cabbage, concludes that it will also make better soup.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Will
#Roses
No man ever quite believes in any other man. One may believe in an idea absolutely, but not in a man.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#May
#Man
#Idea
Women have simple tastes. They get pleasure out of the conversation of children in arms and men in love.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Love
#Children
#Men
#Pleasure
#Conversation
#Women
Women always excel men in that sort of wisdom which comes from experience. To be a woman is in itself a terrible experience.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Men
#Woman
#Experience
#Wisdom
#Women
Whenever you hear a man speak of his love for his country, it is a sign that he expects to be paid for it.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Love
#Country
#Man
Whenever a husband and wife begin to discuss their marriage they are giving evidence at a coroner's inquest.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Wife
#Marriage
#Giving
#Husband
When women kiss it always reminds one of prize fighters shaking hands.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Women
#Kiss
When a new source of taxation is found it never means, in practice, that the old source is abandoned. It merely means that the politicians have two ways of milking the taxpayer where they had one before.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Practice
#Old
#Taxation
#Politicians
What men value in this world is not rights but privileges.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#World
#Men
#Value
#Rights
Wealth - any income that is at least one hundred dollars more a year than the income of one's wife's sister's husband.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Wife
#Income
#Sister
#HusbWealth
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.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Wife
#Children
#Respect
#Sense
#Religion
#Theory
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.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Months
#Jury
We are here and it is now. Further than that, all human knowledge is moonshine.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Knowledge
The only really happy folk are married women and single men.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Men
#Women
#Folk
Unquestionably, there is progress. The average American now pays out twice as much in taxes as he formerly got in wages.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Now
#American
#Progress
#Taxes
#Wages
To die for an idea; it is unquestionably noble. But how much nobler it would be if men died for ideas that were true!
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Men
#Idea
#Ideas
To be in love is merely to be in a state of perceptual anesthesia - to mistake an ordinary young woman for a goddess.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Love
#State
#Woman
#Mistake
Time stays, we go.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Time
There is always an easy solution to every problem - neat, plausible, and wrong.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Solution
#Wrong
There is a saying in Baltimore that crabs may be prepared in fifty ways and that all of them are good.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Saying
#May
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.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Man
#Men
#Humor
Theology is the effort to explain the unknowable in terms of the not worth knowing.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Effort
#Worth
#Theology
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.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Government
#Oppression
#Fanatics
The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Politics
The theory seems to be that as long as a man is a failure he is one of God's children, but that as soon as he succeeds he is taken over by the Devil.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#God
#Children
#Man
#Failure
#Devil
#Theory
The opera is to music what a bawdy house is to a cathedral.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Music
#Opera
We must be willing to pay a price for freedom.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Freedom
A prohibitionist is the sort of man one couldn't care to drink with, even if he drank.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Man
#Care
Criticism is prejudice made plausible.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Criticism
#Prejudice
Conscience is the inner voice that warns us that someone might be looking.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Voice
#Conscience
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.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Eye
#Thought
It is even harder for the average ape to believe that he has descended from man.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Man
It is impossible to imagine the universe run by a wise, just and omnipotent God, but it is quite easy to imagine it run by a board of gods.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#God
#Universe
#Gods
Historian: an unsuccessful novelist.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
It is hard for the ape to believe he descended from man.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Man
Life is a constant oscillation between the sharp horns of dilemmas.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Life
Let's not burn the universities yet. After all, the damage they do might be worse.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
Legend: A lie that has attained the dignity of age.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Dignity
#Age
#Lie
Judge: a law student who marks his own examination-papers.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Law
#Examination
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 or chemistry.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Now
#Woman
#Physics
#Mathematics
#Forbidden
#Pregnancy
It is inaccurate to say that I hate everything. I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty, and common decency. This makes me forever ineligible for public office.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Public
#Hate
#Office
#Honesty
#Common sense
#Decency
I believe in only one thing: liberty; but I do not believe in liberty enough to want to force it upon anyone.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Want
#Liberty
#Force
It is hard to believe that a man is telling the truth when you know that you would lie if you were in his place.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Man
#Truth
#Lie
It is impossible to imagine Goethe or Beethoven being good at billiards or golf.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Golf
#Being
For centuries, theologians have been explaining the unknowable in terms of the-not-worth-knowing.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Wrong
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.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#End
#Friends
#Trust
#Interest
#Marriage
#Profit
Giving every man a vote has no more made men wise and free than Christianity has made them good.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Christianity
#Man
#Men
#Vote
#Giving
It is not materialism that is the chief curse of the world, as pastors teach, but idealism. Men get into trouble by taking their visions and hallucinations too seriously.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#World
#Trouble
#Men
#Materialism
#Visions
#Idealism
I go on working for the same reason that a hen goes on laying eggs.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Reason
I confess I enjoy democracy immensely. It is incomparably idiotic, and hence incomparably amusing.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Democracy
I hate all sports as rabidly as a person who likes sports hates common sense.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Hate
#Common sense
#Sports
I never lecture, not because I am shy or a bad speaker, but simply because I detest the sort of people who go to lectures and don't want to meet them.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Want
#People
I never smoked a cigarette until I was nine.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
Honor is simply the morality of superior men.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Honor
#Men
#Morality
Have you ever watched a crab on the shore crawling backward in search of the Atlantic Ocean, and missing? That's the way the mind of man operates.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Man
#Mind
#Ocean
If women believed in their husbands they would be a good deal happier and also a good deal more foolish.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Women
#Husbands
If a politician found he had cannibals among his constituents, he would promise them missionaries for dinner.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Missionaries
#Promise
I write in order to attain that feeling of tension relieved and function achieved which a cow enjoys on giving milk.
H. L. Mencken,
American
Writer
#Feeling
#Order
#Giving
#Tension