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The basic fact about human existence is not that it is a tragedy, but that it is a bore.


H. L. Mencken

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The basic fact about human existence is not that it is a tragedy, but that it is a bore. It is not s...
H. L. MENCKEN It is a lie.
ARTHUR MILLER Integrity is not everything, but it is the only thing that matters.
JEFFREY FRY Life is weird and wonderful like that, is it not.
SONYA.E.WILLIAMS Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence. -H. L. Mencken.
H. L. MENCKEN It is what it is, it is what you make it.
JAMES DURBIN I am Happy and satisfied with what I am. 10000 will take me wrong, 1000 will go against me, 100 will...
NEHA KOTHARI If our mind was an ocean then every now and then we would have the perfect storm happening in it.Gar...
GARY F EVANS... I regret that I wasn't more successful with my marriages, but it is what it is.
TED TURNER I believe that there is a Matrix and... to be more accurate I am in the Pornography Matrix.
DEYTH BANGER To stand on the
brink of what is coming, feeling eager, optimistic anticipation—with no feeli...
ASK AND IT IS GIVEN As the arteries grow hard, the heart grows soft. -H. L. Mencken.
H. L. MENCKEN I saw that there is no Nature,
That Nature doesn’t exist,
That there are hills, valleys,...
ALBERTO CAEIRO Life is not a game. Still, in this life, we choose the games we live to play.
J.R. RIM Unpredictability means what it means. I don't know how you define it. It is what it is.
MICHAEL KEATON As the arteries grow hard, the heart grows soft. thanks to Alan Bennett -H. L. Mencken.
H. L. MENCKEN I take the good with the bad. I always wanted to be a comic, and part of that, for me, was that I wa...
ERIK GRIFFIN His life seemed like a deck of cards, and in the midst of all those two’s and three’s someone ha...
TEKOA MANNING Life is a re-discovery.
BRIAN BLESSED If you think that life is a celebration full of party poppers and merry go rounds it's not it's a ga...
GARY F EVANS... Life Is a Misconception.
DEYTH BANGER Life is a desire!
DEYTH BANGER To trust someone you must firstly remember that it is a two way street that will go all the way if y...
GARY F EVANS... It is what it is, and it ain't nothin' else... Everything is clearly, openly, plainly delive...
DAN FLAVIN With '10,000,' our aim was to make a film that was entertaining and a roller-coaster ride; i...
STEVEN STRAIT I'm not an Emontional, but how???
I live with the thought that "Nothing can be returned, it has...
DEYTH BANGER Life is not all about sticking or stopping your thoughts to old memories but LIFE STARTS when you st...
NEHA KOTHARI I never like it when a celebrity goes on Twitter and says, 'This isn't true!' It is what...
HARRY STYLES 35. God is entitled to a portion of our income—not because He needs it but because we need to give...
JAMES C. DOBSON It’s an already inside outside,
The philosophers say it’s the soul
But it’s not the ...
ALBERTO CAEIRO Do I believe a thing has limits!? Of course! Nothing exists that doesn’t have limits. Existence me...
ÁLVARO DE CAMPOS Things don’t have significance: they only have existence.
Things are the only hidden meaning ...
ALBERTO CAEIRO The king may rule the kingdom, but it's the queen who moves the board.
D.M. TIMNEY For me, my life is a journey.
JAY ELECTRONICA Mother Superior jump the gun...
-The Beatles, Happiness is a Warm Gun
LAUREN MYRACLE Love isn't the work of the tender and the gentle;
Love is the work of wrestlers.
The one w...
JALALUDDIN MEVLANA RUMI The opportunity to decieve others is ever present and often tempting, and each instance of deception...
SAM HARRIS Life is a risk.
CARMELO ANTHONY You know, I don't think my music is important, I don't think it's changing the world, I ...
SUFJAN STEVENS See the world for what it is.
BEAUTIFUL!
ANTHONY T. HINCKS There was no Jace Wayland more real than the one he saw in her eyes when she looked at him.
CASSANDRA CLARE Without music, life is a journey through a desert.
PAT CONROY Life is a journey. When we stop, things don't go right.
POPE FRANCIS You get to the point where you're like, 'I'm just doing me, and if people don't like...
BEBE REXHA I’m glad I see with my eyes and not the pages I’ve read.
ALBERTO CAEIRO I believe that life is a journey towards God, and that no one has the right to insist that you go a ...
PAT BUCKLEY The Madden Curse has really taken on a life of its own. People just love talking about it, and it is...
DREW BREES I'm probably the least harsh on myself, and I try not to scrutinize everything about my body. As...
KOURTNEY KARDASHIAN What Fucks me... is that we both are the same... we all walk on the same path... but everything is a...
DEYTH BANGER When I die it will be game over,... but I know one life is short, to be selfish is not the best deci...
DEYTH BANGER Life is a journey and it's about growing and changing and coming to terms with who and what you ...
KELLY MCGILLIS Life is a school of probability.
WALTER BAGEHOT This life is a process of learning.
LAURYN HILL Life is a process. We are a process. The universe is a process.
ANNE WILSON SCHAEF Everybody in life is a chameleon.
MELANIE CHISHOLM I wanted to tell you that I just--I miss you. And maybe that sounds ridiculous--like we barely know ...
TAMMARA WEBBER Life is a grand party.
EZRA MILLER I'm one of my sensations.
ALBERTO CAEIRO What is it that makes you so angry, bothers you so deeply, that you're compelled to act?
CRAIG GROESCHEL it's always important to do what you want, Life is too short to live with Regrets.
SHELLI THOMPSON Both [P. T.] Barnum and H. L. Mencken are said to have made the depressing observation that no one e...
CARL SAGAN Our life is a series of moments. Let them all go. Moments. All gathering towards this one.
NOW IS GOOD When you're recording to analog tape, it captures performance and you can't necessarily mani...
DAVE GROHL It takes half your life before you discover life is a do-it-yourself project.
NAPOLEON HILL I consider a dream like I consider a shadow,” answered Caeiro, with his usual divine, unexpected p...
ÁLVARO DE CAMPOS Human life is a combination of tragedy and comedy. The shapes and designs that surround us are the m...
ALVAR AALTO When living is too sweet and swanky, it may be very hard to appreciate the simplest things in life. ...
ERIK PEVERNAGIE I'm living with every step. I can't live with regret. The past is the past. I'm not worr...
RYAN SHECKLER He had a harder time helping her out though. He was asleep while she was doing stars. Without wings,...
LAURIE FRANKEL Life is a comedy when watching and a tragedy when experiencing. I try and share anything I have.
ERIC IDLE Life is a mixing of all kind of things: comedy and tragedy going together.
ALEJANDRO JODOROWSKY Life is a marathon, not a sprint. It's about taking a bigger-picture approach.
IVANKA TRUMP But what you’re calling poetry is what everything is. It’s not even poetry — it’s seeing. Th...
ÁLVARO DE CAMPOS If I knew I was going to die tomorrow,
And Spring came the day after tomorrow,
I would die...
ALBERTO CAEIRO Between what i see in a field and what I see in another field
There passes for a moment the fig...
ALBERTO CAEIRO Not everybody wants be texting their 15-year-old asking how his math tutor was. They would rather be...
RENEE JAMES Life is a magical game so play it with love.
DEBASISH MRIDHA I suppose society is wonderfully delightful. To be in it is merely a bore. But to be out of it is si...
OSCAR WILDE Life is a game and true love is a trophy.
RUFUS WAINWRIGHT Life is a mountain of solvable problems, and I enjoy that.
JAMES DYSON My life is a struggle.
VOLTAIRE Life is a lot like skateboarding.
LIL WAYNE All life is a manifestation of the spirit, the manifestation of love.
MORIHEI UESHIBA For me, life is a bowl of cherries.
SISSY SPACEK Life is a right, not collateral or casual.
SUHEIR HAMMAD Don't be more serious than God. God invented dog farts. God designed your body's plumbing system. Go...
PETER KREEFT As a movement (rather than a preference), the goal of antinatalism is that no humans should have chi...
QUENTIN S. CRISP A lot of people say there's a fine line between genius and insanity. I don't think there's a fine li...
BILL BAILEY I love you; I love you and I don’t care that you’re my sister; don’t be with him, don’t want...
CASSANDRA CLARE The Queen gave him a look: special and secretive and shared between the two of them.You warned he...
CASSANDRA CLARE ...definitely believe that, there's got to be a spark to a place...to make it feel like a home...
ISABELLA KOLDRAS, POEM MY HOME. Human rights commissions, as they are evolving, are an attack on our fundamental freedoms and the ba...
STEPHEN HARPER Empathy is the new measurement of everything. It doesn't matter what religion you have, what God you...
C. JOYBELL C. What comes, when it comes, will be what it is.
ALBERTO CAEIRO Night doesn’t fall for my eyes
But my idea of the night is that it falls for my eyes.
Be...
ALBERTO CAEIRO I’m in no hurry: the sun and the moon aren’t, either.
Nobody goes faster than the legs they...
ALBERTO CAEIRO I never had a problem with my face on screen. I thought it is what it is, and I was turned off by ac...
ROBERT REDFORD It is what it is. I balled out, had some good years, man, had fun and did it with some guys and made...
CALVIN JOHNSON The fact that I am Latino is not a secret. There's not much I can do about that. It is what it i...
PETE GALLEGO One of the things that hold together a human society is the existence of basic politeness among its ...
YAIR LAPID

More H. L. Mencken

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