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H. L. Mencken Quotes - Page 14

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

Socialism: nothing more than the theory that the slave is always more virtuous than his master.

Socialism: nothing more than the theory that the slave is always more virtuous than his master.

Socialism, Slave, Theory

When you sympathize with a married woman you either make two enemies or gain one wife and one friend.

Sympathy, Women, Two

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

No one ever heard of the truth being enforced by law. When the secular is called in to sustain an idea, whether new or old, it is always a bad idea, and not infrequently it is downright idiotic.

Truth, Law, Ideas

H.L. Mencken (2013). “Minority Report”, p.382, Knopf

The essence of science is that it is always willing to abandon a given idea for a better one; the essence of theology is that it holds its truths to be eternal and immutable.

Essence, Ideas, Religion

Archbishop - A Christian ecclesiastic of a rank superior to that attained by Christ.

Funny, Christian, Humorous

A Little Book in C Major ch. 4 (1916)

A skeptic as to all ideas, including especially my own, I have never suffered a pang when the ideas of some other imbecile prevailed.

Ideas, Envy, Imbeciles

H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.163, Vintage

A man is called a good fellow for doing things which, if done by a woman, would land her in a lunatic asylum.

Men, Land, Done

A Little Book in C Major ch. 3 (1916)

The best years are the forties; after fifty a man begins to deteriorate, but in the forties he is at the maximum of his villainy.

Men, Years, Fifty

Democracy is only a dream: it should be put in the same category as Arcadia, Santa Claus, and Heaven.

Dream, Heaven, Democracy

H.L. Mencken (2013). “Minority Report”, p.412, Knopf

The editors are committed to nothing save this: to keep common sense as fast as they can, to belabor sham as agreeably as possible, to give civilized entertainment.

Editors, Common Sense, Giving

If experience teaches us anything at all, it teaches us this: that a good politician, under democracy, is quite as unthinkable as an honest burglar.

Democracy, Politics, Honest

H.L. MENCKEN (1958). “PREJUDICES A SELECTION”

There is no possibility whatsoever of reconciling science and theology, at least in Christendom. Either Jesus arose from the dead or He didn't. If he did, then Christianity becomes plausible; if He did not, then it is sheer nonsense. I defy any genuine scientists to say that he believes in the Resurrection, or indeed in any other cardinal dogma of the Christian system.

Christian, Jesus, Believe

H.L. Mencken (2013). “Minority Report”, p.120, Knopf

The book of Genesis, a farrago of nonsense so wholly absurd that even Sunday-school scholars have to be threatened with Hell to make them accept it.

Book, School, Sunday

H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.202, Vintage

Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable.

Faith, Freedom, Believe

Prejudices, Third Series ch. 14 (1922)

The chief contribution of Protestantism to human thought is its massive proof that God is a bore.

Religion, Atheism, Proof

H.L. Mencken (2013). “Minority Report”, p.311, Knopf

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.

Life, Spiritual, War

H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.131, Vintage

Wife: a former sweetheart.

Wife, Sweetheart, Former

The course of the United States in World War II, I said, was dishonest, dishonorable, and ignominious, and the Sunpapers, by supporting Roosevelt's foreign policy, shared in this disgrace.

War, United States, World

H.L. Mencken (2012). “Diary of H. L. Mencken”, p.682, Vintage

Not by accident, you may be sure, do the Christian Scriptures make the father of knowledge a serpent - slimy, sneaking and abominable.

Christian, Father, Thinking

There is always a sheet of paper. There is always a pen. There is always a way out.

Paper, Way, Sheets

H.L. Mencken (2013). “Minority Report”, p.29, Knopf

No government is ever really in favor of so-called civil rights. It always tries to whittle them down. They are preserved under all governments, insofar as they survive at all, by special classes of fanatics, often highly dubious.

Rights, Government, Class

"Minority Report: H.L. Mencken's Notebooks". Book by H. L. Mencken (p. 33), 1956.

Why writers write I do not know. As well ask why a hen lays an egg or why a cow stands patiently while an underprivileged farmer burglarizes her.

Writing, Eggs, Hens

What is the function that a clergyman performs in the world? Answer: He gets his living by assuring idiots that he can save them from an imaginary hell.

Answers, World, Idiot

H.L. Mencken (2013). “Minority Report”, p.180, Knopf

One of the things that makes a Negro unpleasant to white folk is the fact that he suffers from their injustice. He is thus a standing rebuke to them.

White, Justice, Diversity

H.L. Mencken (2013). “Minority Report”, p.271, Knopf

Conscience is a mother-in-law whose visit never ends.

Mother, Freedom, Law

"A Mencken Chrestomathy: His Own Selection of His Choicest Writing". Book edited by H. L. Mencken, 1949.

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