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H. L. Mencken Quotes - Page 26

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In the long run all battles are lost, and so are all wars.

In the long run all battles are lost, and so are all wars.

Running, War, Long

When a husband's story is believed, he begins to suspect his wife.

Funny, Husband, Wife

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

The worshiper is the father of the gods.

Father, Religion, Dignity

H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.178, Vintage

Henry James would have been vastly improved as a novelist by a few whiffs of the Chicago stockyard.

Novelists, Chicago, Has Beens

H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.500, Vintage

Puccini - silver macaroni, exquisitely tangled.

Tangled, Silver, Composer

Confidence: The feeling that makes one believe a man, even when one knows that one would lie in his place

Confidence, Lying, Believe

Writing books is certainly a most unpleasant occupation. It is lonesome, unsanitary, and maddening. Many authors go crazy.

Success, Crazy, Book

All human progress, even in morals, has been the work of men who have doubted the current moral values, not of men who have whooped them up and tried to enforce them.

Men, Progress, Society

H.L. Mencken (2013). “Minority Report”, p.416, Knopf

Women always excel men in that sort of wisdom which comes from experience. To be a woman is in itself a terrible experience.

Wisdom, Men, Literature

Here the only genuine conflict is between true believers. Of a given text in Holy Writ one faction may say this thing and another that, but both agree unreservedly that the text itself is impeccable, and neither in the midst of the most violent disputation would venture to accuse the other of doubt. To call a man a doubter in these parts is equal to accusing him of cannibalism. Even the infidel Scopes himself is not charged with any such infamy.

Men, Doubt, Atheism

Every reader of the Dreiser novels must cherish astounding specimens--of awkward, platitudinous marginalia, of whole scenes spoiled by bad writing, of phrases as brackish as so many lumps of sodium hyposulphite.

Writing, Awkward, Sodium

H.L. Mencken (1917). “A book of prefaces”, p.86, Рипол Классик

[Art is] an attempt to escape from life.

Art, Art Is

To large numbers of American citizens life in certain parts of the country becomes intolerably hazardous. They may be seized on any pretext, however flimsy, and put to death with horrible tortures. No government pretending to be civilized can go on condoning such atrocities. Either it must make every possible effort to put them down or it must suffer the scorn and contempt of Christendom.

Country, Government, Lynching

The only liberty an inferior man really cherishes is the liberty to quit work, stretch out in the sun, and scratch himself.

Work, Stress, Men

H.L. Mencken (2013). “Minority Report”, p.250, Knopf

At eight or nine, I suppose intelligence is no more than a small spot of light on the floor of a large and murky room.

Eight, Light, Nine

I believe there is a limit beyond which free speech cannot go, but it's a limit that's very seldom mentioned. It's the point where free speech begins to collide with the right to privacy. I don't think there are any other conditions to free speech. I've got a right to say and believe anything I please, but I haven't got a right to press it on anybody else. .... Nobody's got a right to be a nuisance to his neighbors.

Freedom, Believe, Thinking

Evil: That which one believes of others. It is a sin to believe evil of others, but it is seldom a mistake

Mistake, Believe, Evil

A Little Book in C Major ch. 5 (1916)

I believe that all government is evil, in that all government must necessarily make war on liberty, and that the democratic government is at least as bad as any of the other forms.

War, Believe, Government

The worst of marriage is that it makes a woman believe that all men are just as easy to fool.

Marriage, Believe, Men

"A little book in C major".

I go on working for the same reason that a hen goes on laying eggs. There is in every living creature an obscure but powerful impulse to active functioning. Life demands to be lived. Inaction, save as a measure of recuperation between bursts of activity, is painful and dangerous to the healthy organism- in fact, it is almost impossible. Only the dying can be really idle.

Life, Success, Powerful

A man's women folk, whatever their outward show of respect for his merit and authority, always regard him secretly as an ass, and with something akin to pity. His most gaudy sayings and doings seldom deceive them; they see the actual man within, and know him for a shallow and pathetic fellow. In this fact, perhaps, lies one of the best proofs of feminine intelligence, or, as the common phrase makes it, feminine intuition.

Women, Lying, Intuition

H. L. Mencken (2015). “In Defense of Women: Human Sexuality”, p.6, 谷月社

Man's objection to love is that it dies hard: women's, that when it is dead it stays dead.

Women, Love Is, Objections

"Mencken Chrestomathy".

To wage a war for a purely moral reason is as absurd as to ravish a woman for a purely moral reason

Peace, War, Moral

School teachers, taking them by and large, are probably the most ignorant and stupid class of men in the whole group of mental workers.

Teacher, Stupid, School

H. L. Mencken (2013). “The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche”, p.121, Simon and Schuster

When women kiss it always reminds one of prize fighters shaking hands.

Funny, Women, Humor

A Little Book in C Major ch. 6 (1916)

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