The truth is that the average schoolmaster, on all the lower levels, is and always must be essentially and next door to an idiot, for how can one imagine an intelligent man engaging in so puerile an avocation?


Henry Louis Mencken

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You come into the world with nothing, and the purpose of your life is to make something out of nothi...
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
A good politician is quite as unthinkable as an honest burglar
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
If x is the population of the United States and y is the degree of imbecility of the average America...
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
The intelligent, like the unintelligent, are responsive to propaganda
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
In order to teach chemistry or psychology or even history or Greek a man must actually know somethin...
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
During many a single week, I daresay, more money is spent in New York upon useless and evil things t...
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
Living with a dog is messy - like living with an idealist
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin.
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
I believe that all government is evil, and that trying to improve it is largely a waste of time.
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
I have yet to meet (a socialist) who was not as gullible as a Mississippi darkey - nay, as a Mississ...
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
I never lecture, not because I am shy or a bad speaker, but simply because I detest the sort of peop...
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
The average schoolmaster is, and always must be, an ass
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
If he became convinced tomorrow that coming out for cannibalism would get him the votes he so sorely...
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
After all, the world is not our handiwork, and we are not responsible for what goes on in it, save w...
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people.
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
Conscience is a mother-in-law whose visit never ends
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
Perhaps the most revolting character that the United States ever produced was the Christian business...
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
What ass first let lose the doctrine that the suffrage is a high boon and voting a noble privilege? ...
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
If a politician found he had cannibals among his constituents, he would promise them missionaries fo...
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
A large part of altruism, even when it is perfectly honest, is grounded upon the fact that it is unc...
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
Many an American Congressman comes to Washington from a district attorney's office: you may be sure ...
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
What restrains us from killing is partly fear of punishment, partly moral scruple, and partly what m...
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
Do not overestimate the decency of the human race
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
Man is always looking for someone to boast to; woman is always looking for a shoulder to put her hea...
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
When I mount the scaffold at last these will be my farewell words to the sheriff: Say what you will ...
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
School teachers, taking them by and large, are probably the most ignorant and stupid class of men in...
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
The only kind of freedom that the mob can imagine is freedom to annoy and oppress its betters, and t...
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
And out of each (schoolhouse) is vomited the standard product of the New Pedagogy - an endless proce...
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
Every great wave of popular passion that rolls up on the prairies is dashed to spray when it strikes...
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
I never smoked a cigarette until I was nine.
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
Conscience is the inner voice that warns us somebody may be looking.
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
The lunatic fringe wags the underdog
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
Creator: a comedian whose audience is afraid to laugh
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
The formula of the argument is simple and familiar: to dispose of a problem all that is necessary is...
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
We must respect the other fellow's religion,but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect ...
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
I hate all sports as rabidly as a person who likes sports hates common sense.
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all; it is simply to reduce as many in...
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
All men are frauds. The only difference between them is that some admit it. I myself deny it.
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
To expect defeat is nine-tenths of defeat itself.
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
It is a peculiarity of the American mind that it regards any excursion into the truth as an adventur...
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
It is more blessed to give than receive; for example, wedding presents
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
Painting is the art of protecting flat surfaces from the weather and exposing them to the critic
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
Christian theology is not only opposed to the scientific spirit; it is opposed to every other form o...
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
A sense of humor always withers in the presence of the messianic delusion, like justice and truth in...
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
The men the American people admire most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest...
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
Religion is fundamentally opposed to everything I hold in veneration - courage, clear thinking, hone...
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
Love is like war; easy to begin but very hard to stop
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence.
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
Theology is the effort to explain the unknowable in terms of the not worth knowing.
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
School days, I believe, are the unhappiest in the whole span of human existence.
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
The demagogue is one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
What men value in this world is not rights but privileges
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
I believe that religion, generally speaking, has been a curse to mankind - that its modest and great...
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
Giving every man a vote has no more made men wise and free than Christianity has made them good
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
The urge to save humanity is almost always only a false face for the urge to rule it.
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN