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

  Email Quote to Friends   Link to Quote   Create Short URL  Publish Text About This Quote   Share on Facebook, Twitter, and more
  See Recommended Quotes For You

Related

Say what you will about the Ten Commandments, you must always come back to the pleasant fact that th...
H L MENCKEN
Say what you want about the Ten Commandments, you must always come back to the pleasant fact that th...
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence. -H. L. Mencken.
H. L. MENCKEN
Do you advocate the Ten Commandments as a guide to the good life? Then I can only presume that you d...
RICHARD DAWKINS
As the arteries grow hard, the heart grows soft. -H. L. Mencken.
H. L. MENCKEN
As the arteries grow hard, the heart grows soft. thanks to Alan Bennett -H. L. Mencken.
H. L. MENCKEN
One of the reasons why the Ten Commandments are so short and to the point is the fact they were give...
H. G. HUTCHESON
You know, it's ironic to me that Christians want to keep the Ten Commandments in our schools, be...
ALAN DERSHOWITZ
The Ten Commandments are not multiple choice
SOURCE UNKNOWN
[Obey is unbowed.] I think if you asked God, he'd say the Ten Commandments were a road map for livin...
DAVID OBEY
A belief in God is vitally important, not just in show business, but stability in life. You know, to...
DONNY OSMOND
The Ten Commandments are the divinely revealed law.
ROY MOORE
America, where thanks to Congress, there are forty million laws to enforce the Ten Commandments
ANATOLE FRANCE
The Ten Commandments were not a suggestion.
PAT RILEY
Once you depart from the Ten Commandments as being the foundation of right and wrong, you are in a f...
RANDALL TERRY
The boys are in such a mood that if someone introduced the Ten Commandments, they'd cut them down to...
NORRIS COTTON
What the ten commandments set forth is a strategy. This strategy is a strategy for dominion.
GARY NORTH
The posting of the Ten Commandments sends the message that only certain believers can receive justic...
HEDY WEINBERG
Never had I heard from my elders that what I thus did was bad. It is true that there are the ten com...
LEO TOLSTOY
“You give us long enough to argue over something and we will bring it to you in proofs to show tha...
WILL ROGERS
When you hear people demanding that the Ten Commandments be displayed in courtrooms and schoolrooms,...
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS
The Ten Commandments in the Public Sphere.
PAUL FINKELMAN
And he declared unto you his covenant, which he commanded you to perform, even ten commandments; and...
BIBLE
If there's one thing for which I admire you, it's your original discovery of the Ten Commandments.
THOMAS BRACKETT REED
There are thousands of Ten Commandments plaques or monuments all over the country, and lawsuits to r...
PHYLLIS SCHLAFLY
I believe if more American children read the Ten Commandments and are taught what they mean, they wi...
GARY BAUER
The Ten Commandments are a powerful statement of the covenant God made with his people,
RUTH BADER GINSBURG
Of every ten persons who talk about you, nine will say something bad, and the tenth will say somethi...
ANTOINE RIVAROL
Used to be. It is changing. It has changed so much in ten years. The novelty has worn off for me, I ...
ROB WRIGHT
I've traveled all over the country for years speaking in churches, teaching the Ten Commandments...
RANDALL TERRY
If God had been a liberal, we wouldn't have had the Ten Commandments -- we'd have the Ten Suggestion...
MALCOLM BRADBURY
The Hebrew original does not say, ‘Do not kill.’ It says, ‘Do not murder.’ Both Hebrew and E...
DENNIS PRAGER
I have wondered at times what the Ten Commandments would have looked like if Moses had run them thro...
RONALD REAGAN
I have wondered at times what the Ten Commandments would have looked like if Moses had run them thro...
RONALD REAGAN
You can easily find people who are ten times as rich at sixty as they were at twenty; but not one of...
GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
Ten ancient commandments lousing up the fun. Along came prosperity, and then there was none.
GERALD BARZAN
Though there are some notable exceptions, by and large the persistent ranting of the Warren Commissi...
VINCENT BUGLIOSI
If God had been a liberal, we wouldn't have had the Ten Commandments - we'd have the Ten Sug...
MALCOLM BRADBURY
Love is a form of prejudice. You love what you need, you love what makes you feel good, you love wha...
CHARLES BUKOWSKI
The Ten Commandments are the most visible symbol because these commandments are recognized by Christ...
PAT ROBERTSON
Could I come near your beauty with my nails, I'd set my ten commandments in your face.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Accuse a person of breaking all Ten Commandments, and you've written the promo blurb for the dus...
P. J. O'ROURKE
Most of the Ten Commandments are negative. The purpose of law is not to mandate good behavior. That ...
RANDALL TERRY
Those who say we only use ten percent of our brain are the ones that do.
KIRPA RAI
The leaders agreed to take a break. I don't think people are going to want to hear about new policie...
GOLDY HYDER
Mr. Speaker, the fact of the matter is that the Ten Commandments are a historical document that cont...
CLIFF STEARNS
There is a law of the natural worlds (the spiritual and the physical) and this is something I have u...
C. JOYBELL C.
I know a fellow who's as broke as the Ten Commandments.
JOHN MARQUAND
If your friends don't support you, then divorce them. Get married to your dreams. Ten years from tod...
TROY GATHERS
From where we're standing to the house was about ten feet. I'd say nine or ten feet of debris. 'Caus...
RUSS ANDERSON
Ten out of ten banks will underwrite their home loan in the same way, to protect themselves, but doe...
ZENG HAN JUN
Are you from Tennessee? Cause you're the only ten-I-see
UNKNOWN
If Moses had been paid newspaper rates for the Ten Commandments, he might have written the Two Thous...
ISAAC BASHEVIS SINGER
There are eleven million Jews in the world. I don't say that all of them will come here, but I e...
DAVID BEN-GURION
If you send out goodness from yourself, or if you share that which is happy or good within you, it w...
JOHN O'DONOHUE
You have … a clear majority saying yes, you can display the Ten Commandments if you're doing it for...
FRANCIS MANION
You can't change your fingerprints. You have only ten of them. And you leave them on everything ...
AL FRANKEN
No nation which has kept the commandments of God has ever perished, but I say to you that once freed...
EZRA TAFT BENSON
If you really one to become great, you must practice the rule of ten thousand hours.
SUNDAY ADELAJA
Jesus taught us how to pray because The Lord's Prayer is the spiritual image of the Ten Commandments...
FELIX WANTANG
Regardless of what people ultimately think about Crazy As Hell, It's not the type of film that, ...
ERIQ LA SALLE
If God would have wanted us to live in a permissive society He would have given us Ten Suggestions a...
ZIG ZIGLAR
I suggest we bring some normality back to this country and say if you are carrying a knife, there mu...
SIMON COWELL
The minute a thing is long and complicated it confuses. Whoever wrote the Ten Commandments made 'em ...
WILL ROGERS
Ten times must you laugh during the day, and be cheerful; otherwise your stomach, the father of affl...
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE
Listen, anyone in the heavyweight division in the top ten, there is no easy fight. I don't care ...
STIPE MIOCIC
Be pleasant until ten o'clock in the morning and the rest of the day will take care of itself.
ELBERT HUBBARD
You must learn to face the fact, always, that you choose to do what you do, and that everything you ...
HOLLY LISLE
I have ten commandments. The first nine are, thou shalt not bore. The tenth is, thou shalt have righ...
BILLY WILDER
The truth doesn't change. It was the same when Moses got the Ten Commandments as it is today. Th...
DMX
In vain we call old notions fudge And bend our conscience to our dealing. The Ten Commandments...
MOTTO
Forgive me if I'm wrong. But are you-were you-did you come here on a train from New York about ten y...
CHRISTINA BAKER KLINE
Public opinion is stronger than the legislature, and nearly as strong as the ten commandments.
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER
Public opinion is stronger than the legislature, and nearly as strong as the ten commandments
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER
The Ten Commandments have never been replaced as the moral basis upon which society rests.
EDWIN LOUIS COLE
It's a pleasant thing to be young, and have ten toes.
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
In ten phrases, the ten commandments express the essential of life. And these three words-liberty, e...
KRZYSZTOF KIESLOWSKI
Pay attention to the big themes because that's what will help you earn ten times your money.
BARRY STERNLICHT
Somebody figured it out -- we have 35 million laws trying to enforce Ten Commandments.
EARL WILSON
Somebody figured it out / we have 35 million laws trying to enforce Ten Commandments.
EARL WILSON
If I only have ten minutes, Sam, this is what I want to say. You're not the best of us. You're more ...
MAGGIE STIEFVATER
In matters of truth the fact that you don't want to publish something is, nine times out of ten, a p...
G. K. CHESTERTON
What was unusual about the way we did this version of 'The Ten Commandments' was we treated Moses li...
NAVEEN ANDREWS
I always wanted to beat Michigan. When you come into the Big Ten you always want to beat the teams l...
BRETT BELL
And he called his ten servants, and delivered them ten pounds, and said unto them, Occupy till I com...
BIBLE
My camps are always ten weeks. That's what makes me comfortable.
CANELO ALVAREZ
Food Allergies Are Not Due to Food, Rather Are Due to the Constant Contamination of That Food That Y...
THEHEALTHFOODGURU
If you think that it would be impossible to improve upon the Ten Commandments as a statement of mora...
SAM HARRIS
Out of ten listener, only one can recite accurately what he/she heard exactly from the speaker, othe...
BRADLEY B. DALINA
Commemoration of Jack Winslow, Missionary, Evangelist, 1974 The reason that the Ten Commandments...
DAN BENNETT
The First Amendment to the Constitution reflects that concept recognized in the Ten Commandments, th...
ROY MOORE
In writing, a good guy must never break any of the Ten Commandments. A bad guy must break every one....
KIMBERLY BLACK
The Beatitudes correspond to the Decalogue, with blessings in lieu of the forbidden.
JAMES MIKOłAJCZYK
I have ten thousand for defense, but none to surrender; if you want our weapons come and get them.
UNATTRIBUTED AUTHOR
In matters of truth the fact that you don't want to publish something is, nine times out of ten,...
GILBERT K. CHESTERTON
Socialism violates at least three of the Ten Commandments: It turns government into God, it legalize...
BEN SHAPIRO
We told our team that Penn State, pound for pound, is the toughest team the in Big Ten. That team yo...
DAN MUNSON
Joseph Farah and I share a fierce passion for protecting children and a belief that without the Ten ...
LAURA SCHLESSINGER
Everything that's going on within the peloton - there's about ten different races going on. ...
DAVID MILLAR
Once, I had to drive Oliver to soccer, was ten minutes late, and learned that there had apparently b...
DEB CALETTI

More H. L. Mencken

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