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H. L. Mencken Quotes - Page 22

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

Poetry has done enough when it charms, but prose must also convince.

Poetry has done enough when it charms, but prose must also convince.

Lucky Charms, Done, Literature

H. L. Mencken (2009). “Prejudices: Third Series”, p.166, Cosimo, Inc.

Metaphysics is almost always an attempt to prove the incredible by an appeal to the unintelligible.

Cynical, Agnostic, Incredibles

I never agree with Communists or any other kind of kept men.

Men, Kind, Communism

The university president who cashiered every professor unwilling to support Woodrow Wilson for the first vacancy in the Trinity. . . .

Support, President, Vacancy

Let's not burn the universities yet. After all, the damage they do might be worse.

College, Damage, Might

To denounce moralizing out of hand is to pronounce a moral judgment.

Hands, Morality, Judgment

H. L. Mencken, Marion Elizabeth Rodgers (2010). “H.L. Mencken: Prejudices: First, Second, and Third Series”, Hubsta Ltd

Voting is simply a way of determining which side is the stronger without putting it to the test of fighting.

Fighting, Voting, Stronger

H.L. Mencken (2013). “Minority Report”, p.312, Knopf

The fact is that the average man's love of liberty is nine-tenths imaginary, exactly like his love of sense, justice and truth.

Men, Average, Justice

H.L. Mencken (2013). “Second Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.113, Vintage

Christian endeavor is notoriously hard on female pulchritude.

Christian, Atheism, Female

The penalty for laughing in a courtroom is six months in jail; if it were not for this penalty, the jury would never hear the evidence.

Funny, Laughter, Humorous

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

Debussy--A pretty girl with one blue eye and one brown one.

Music, Girl, Eye

All government, in its essence, is a conspiracy against the superior man: it's one permanent object is to oppress him and cripple him... One of its primary functions is to regiment men by force, to make them as much alike as possible and as dependent upon one another as possible, to search out and combat originality among them.

Men, Essence, Originality

"Prejudices: Third Series (Le Contrat Social)". Book by H. L. Mencken, 1922.

The chief value of money lies in the fact that one lives in a world in which it is overestimated.

Funny, Inspiring, Appreciation

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

A large part of altruism, even when it is perfectly honest, is grounded upon the fact that it is uncomfortable to have unhappy people about one.

People, Unhappy, Charity

H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.17, Vintage

The worst government is the most moral.

Government, Moral, Worst

Jury - A group of 12 people, who, having lied to the judge about their health, hearing, and business engagements, have failed to fool him.

People, Judging, Groups

Hanging one scoundrel, it appears, does not deter the next. Well, what of it? The first one is at least disposed of.

Freedom, Democracy, Doe

The more a man dreams, the less he believes.

Inspirational, Life, Motivational

H.L. Mencken (1920). “Prejudices Second Series”

The chief knowledge that's man on from reading books is the knowledge that very few of them are worth reading.

Funny, Book, Reading

"A little book in C major".

No matter how much a woman loved a man, it would still give her a glow to see him commit suicide for her.

Love, Suicide, Dream

The martini: the only American invention as perfect as the sonnet.

Drinking, Perfect, Invention

We must be willing to pay a price for freedom.

Freedom, Pay, Payment

H. L. MENCKEN (1924). “PREJUDICES FOURTH SERIES”

The way to deal with superstition is not to be polite to it, but to tackle it with all arms, and so rout it, cripple it, and make it forever infamous and ridiculous. Is it, perchance, cherished by persons who should know better? Then their folly should be brought out into the light of day, and exhibited there in all its hideousness until they flee from it, hiding their heads in shame.

Light, Forever, Criticism

"Aftermath". Baltimore Evening Sun, September 14, 1925.

Life without sex might be safer but it would be unbearably dull. It is the sex instinct which makes women seem beautiful, which they are once in a blue moon, and men seem wise and brave, which they never are at all. Throttle it, denaturalize it, take it away, and human existence would be reduced to the prosaic, laborious, boresome, imbecile level of life in an anthill.

Beautiful, Wise, Sex

The true bureaucrat is a man of really remarkable talents. He writes a kind of English that is unknown elsewhere in the world, and an almost infinite capacity for forming complicated and unworkable rules.

Writing, Men, Liberty

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