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H. L. Mencken Quotes - Page 10

All Quotes Achievement Adultery Adventure Age Alcohol Arguing Art Atheism Atheist Beer Belief Business Change Character Children Choices College Comedy Common Sense Communism Conscience Conspiracy Cooking Country Courage Criticism Critics Culture Cynicism Death Democracy Determination Devil Difficulty Dignity Doubt Drinking Dying Earth Education Effort Ethics Evil Exercise Faith Fear Feelings Fighting Food Free Speech Freedom Funny Genius Giving God Golf Happiness Hate Heart Heaven Hell History Home Honesty Honor House Humanity Husband Ignorance Imagination Inspirational Intelligence Intuition Journalism Joy Judging Justice Kissing Knowledge Language Laughter Learning Liberty Life Literature Logic Love Lying Marriage Military Money Moon Morality Music Nature Office Originality Passion Past Patriotism Peace Personality Philosophy Politics Pot Poverty Prejudice Progress Propaganda Quality Quitting Reading Religion Respect Revolution Running Safety School Science Science And Religion Skins Slavery Society Son Sports Struggle Stupidity Style Success Suffering Sunday Sympathy Teaching Temptation Time Today Tragedy Trust Truth Virtue Voting Waiting War Water Weakness Wife Wisdom Work Writing Youth

When a woman says she won't, it's a good sign that she will. And when she says she will, it is an even better sign.

When a woman says she won't, it's a good sign that she will. And when she says she will, it is an even better sign.

Sex, Women

Giving every man a vote has no more made men wise and free than Christianity has made them good.

Wise, Freedom, Men

Friendship is a common belief in the same fallacies, mountebanks and hobgoblins.

Friendship, Belief, Common

H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.616, Vintage

He marries best who puts it off until it is too late.

Marriage, Too Late, Late

H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.620, Vintage

Love is the delusion that one woman differs from another.

Love, Delusional, Funny Love

A Little Book in C Major ch. 1 (1916)

Dachshund: A half-a-dog high and a dog-and-a-half long.

Funny, Dog, Long

A Puritan is someone who is desperately afraid that, somewhere, someone might be having a good time.

Religion, Atheism, Might

The function of a newspaper in a democracy is to stand as a sort of chronic opposition to the reigning quacks. The minute it begins to out-whoop them it forfeits its character and becomes ridiculous.

Character, Democracy, Ridiculous

H.L. Mencken (2012). “Diary of H. L. Mencken”, p.281, Vintage

Whenever A annoys or injures B on the pretense of saving or improving X, A is a scoundrel.

Saving, Annoying, Scoundrels

Newspaper Days: 1899 - 1906 ch. 2 (1941)

Human progress is furthered, not by conformity, but by aberration.

Wisdom, Progress, Aberration

H.L. Mencken (2013). “Second Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.470, Vintage

You come into the world with nothing, and the purpose of your life is to make something out of nothing.

Life, Change, Wisdom

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.

Love, Cheer, Pride

As the arteries grow hard, the heart grows soft.

Love, Hate, Heart

[Texas is] the place where there are the most cows and the least milk and the most rivers and the least water in them, and where you can look the farthest to see the least.

Texas, Rivers, Water

Say what you will about the ten commandments, you must always come back to the pleasant fact that there are only ten of them.

Funny, Laughter, Freedom

Anyhow, the hole in the donut is at least digestible.

Food, Holes, Donuts

Penetrating so many secrets, we cease to believe in the unknowable. But there it sits nevertheless, calmly licking its chops

Art, Believe, Knowledge

H.L. Mencken (2013). “Minority Report”, p.363, Knopf

What ass first let loose the doctrine that the suffrage is a high boon and voting a noble privilege?

Voting, Democracy, Doctrine

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.

Cutting, Men, University Professors

H.L. Mencken (2013). “Minority Report”, p.167, Knopf

A man full of faith is simply one who has lost the capacity for clear and realistic thought.

Faith, Atheist, Men

H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.11, Vintage

God is a Republican, and Santa Claus is a Democrat.

Funny, Humorous, Party

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.

Men, Vision, World

Nine out of ten Americans are actually monarchists at bottom. The fact is proved by their high suseptibility to political claims by president's sons and other relatives, usually nonentities.

Son, Government, Political

Any man who afflicts the human race with ideas must be prepared to see them misunderstood.

Men, Race, Ideas

The sort of man who likes to spend his time watching a cage of monkeys chase one another, or a lion gnaw its tail, or a lizard catch flies, is precisely the sort of man whose mental weakness should be combated at the public expense, not fostered.

Men, Weakness, Tails

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