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H. L. Mencken Quotes - Page 23

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

Nine times out of ten, in the arts as in life, there is actually no truth to be discovered; there is only error to be exposed.

Nine times out of ten, in the arts as in life, there is actually no truth to be discovered; there is only error to be exposed.

Art, Errors, Literature

H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.434, Vintage

If all the lawyers were hanged tomorrow, and their bones were sold to a mah jong factory, we'd all be freer and safer, and our taxes would be reduced by almost a half.

Half, Would Be, Tomorrow

I believe that religion, generally speaking, has been a curse to mankind.

Religious, Believe, Religion

"What I Believe" in The Forum 84 (p. 139), September 1930.

Clergyman: A ticket speculator outside the gates of Heaven.

Heaven, Tickets, Agnostic

It is now quite lawful for a Catholic woman to avoid pregnancy by a resort to mathematics, though she is still forbidden to resort to physics or chemistry.

Women, Pregnancy, Science

Minority Report: H. L. Mencken's Notebooks (1956)

Perhaps the most revolting character that the United States ever produced was the Christian Businessman.

Christian, Character, United States

The thing constantly overlooked by those hopefuls who talk about abolishing war is that it is by no means an evidence of decay but rather a proof of health and vigor.

Peace, War, Mean

H.L. Mencken (2013). “Minority Report”, p.22, Knopf

Pastor: One employed by the wicked to prove to them by his example that virtue doesn't pay.

Wicked, Example, Pay

Most people are unable to write because they are unable to think, and they are unable to think because they congenitally lack the equipment to do so, just as they congenitally lack the equipment to fly over the moon.

Writing, Moon, Thinking

The smallest atom of truth represents some man's bitter toil and agony; for every ponderable chunk of it there is a brave truth-seeker's grave upon some lonely ash-dump and a soul roasting in hell.

Lonely, Truth, Honesty

H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.15, Vintage

A man who is an agnostic by inheritance, so that he doesn't remember any time that he wasn't, has almost no hatred for the religious.

Religious, Men, Hatred

It is difficult to imagine anyone having any real hopes for the human race in the face of the fact that the great majority of men still believe that the universe is run by a gaseous vertebrate of astronomical heft and girth, who is nevertheless interested in the minutest details of the private conduct of even the meanest man.

Running, Fear, Real

Such is the art of writing as Dreiser understands it and practices it--an endless piling up of minutiae, an almost ferocious tracking down of ions, electrons and molecules, an unshakable determination to tell it all. One is amazed by the mole-like diligence of the man, and no less by his exasperating disregard for the ease of his readers.

Art, Determination, Writing

What we need in this country is a general improvement in eating. We have the best raw materials in the world, both quantitatively and qualitatively, but most of them are ruined in the process of preparing them for the table.

Country, World, Tables

Honor is simply the morality of superior men.

Character, Men, Honor

H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.111, Vintage

How do they taste? They taste like more.

Food, Cooking, Taste

Wealth - any income that is at least one hundred dollars more a year than the income of one's wife's sister's husband.

Funny, Money, Husband

Truth would quickly cease to be stranger than fiction, once we got as used to it.

Truth, Freedom, Philosophy

H.L. Mencken “A little book in C major”, Рипол Классик

In war the heroes always outnumber the soldiers ten to one.

War, Hero, Soldier

Life may not be exactly pleasant, but it is at least not dull. Heave yourself into Hell today, and you may miss, tomorrow or next day, another Scopes trial, or another War to End War, or perchance a rich and buxom widow with all her first husband's clothes. There are always more Hardings hatching. I advocate hanging on as long as possible.

Husband, War, Next Day

American Mercury, Apr. 1928

You never push a noun against a verb without trying to blow up something.

Writing, Blow, Trying

Why do men delight in work? Fundamentally, I suppose, because there is a sense of relief and pleasure in getting something done - a kind of satisfaction not unlike that which a hen enjoys on laying an egg.

Work, Men, Eggs

H.L. Mencken (2013). “Minority Report”, p.33, Knopf

The way to hold a husband is to keep him a little jealous; the way to lose him is to keep him a little more jealous.

Marriage, Jealousy, Husband

The cure for the evils of democracy is more democracy.

Freedom, Democracies Have, Evil

H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.154, Vintage

If, after I depart this vale, you ever remember me and have thought to please my ghost, forgive some sinner and wink your eye at some homely girl.

Girl, Memories, Kindness

Smart Set, Dec. 1921

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