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H. L. Mencken Quotes - Page 29

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

A free citizen in a free state, it seems to me, has an inalienable right to play with whomsoever he will, so long as he does not disturb the general peace. If any other citizen, offended by the spectacle, makes a

A free citizen in a free state, it seems to me, has an inalienable right to play with whomsoever he will, so long as he does not disturb the general peace. If any other citizen, offended by the spectacle, makes a pother, then that other citizen, and not the man exercising his inalienable right, should be put down by the police.

Exercise, Men, Play

Culture itself is neither education nor law-making: it is an atmosphere and a heritage.

Law, Atmosphere, Culture

H.L. Mencken (2013). “Minority Report”, p.360, Knopf

The two main ideas that run through all of my writing, whether it be literary criticism or political polemic are these: I am strong in favor of liberty and I hate fraud.

Running, Strong, Hate

Temptation is an irresistible force at work on a movable body.

Work, Temptation, Body

The truth is that the scientific value of Polar exploration is greatly exaggerated. The thing that takes men on such hazardous trips is really not any thirst for knowledge, but simply a yearning for adventure. ... A Polar explorer always talks grandly of sacrificing his fingers and toes to science. It is an amiable pretention, but there is no need to take it seriously.

Adventure, Sacrifice, Men

A living language is like a man suffering incessantly from small hemorrhages, and what it needs above all else is constant transactions of new blood from other tongues. The day the gates go up, that day it begins to die.

Men, Blood, Suffering

"The 100 best nonfiction books: No 49 - The American Language by HL Mencken (1919)" by Robert McCrum, www.theguardian.com. January 9, 2017.

Who will argue that 98.6 Farenheit is the right temperature for man? As for me, I decline to do it. It may be that we are all actually freezing hence the pervading stupidity of mankind. At 110 or 115 degrees even archbishops might be intelligent.

Intelligent, Men, Stupidity

H.L. Mencken (2013). “Minority Report”, p.213, Knopf

Each party steals so many articles of faith from the other, and the candidates spend so much time making each other's speeches, that by the time election day is past there is nothing much to do save turn the sitting rascals out and let a new gang in.

Party, Past, Political

Only a jackass ever talks over his affairs with a woman, whether she be his sweetheart, wife, or sister, or mother.

Mother, Women, Wife

The objection to Puritans is not that they try to make us think as they do, but that they try to make us do as they think.

Thinking, Religion, Trying

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

The townspeople are morons, yokels, peasants and genus homo boobiensis...surrounded by gaping primates from the upland vallies.

Modern Life, Primates, Peasants

That it should still be necessary, at this late stage in the senility of the human race to argue that women have a fine and fluent intelligence is surely an eloquent proof of the defective observation, incurable prejudice, and general imbecility of their lords and masters.

Race, Prejudice, Arguing

H. L. Mencken (2015). “In Defense of Women: Human Sexuality”, p.7, 谷月社

The priest, realistically considered, is the most immoral of men, for he is always willing to sacrifice every other sort of good to the one good of his arcanum - the vague body of mysteries that he calls the truth.

Sacrifice, Men, Atheism

No man of honor ever quite lives up to his code, any more than a moral man manages to avoid sin.

Lying, Men, Honor

H.L. Mencken (2013). “Minority Report”, p.26, Knopf

Some immemorial imbecilities have been added deliberately, on the ground that it is just as interesting to note how foolish men have been as to note how wise they have been.

Wise, Men, Foolish Man

Never drink if you've got any work to do. Never.

Drink, Ifs

All the political seers and sorcerers seem to be agreed that the coming Presidential campaign will be full of bitterness, and that most of it will be caused by religion. I count Prohibition as a part of religion, for it has surely become so in the United States. The Prohibitionists, seeing all their other arguments destroyed by the logic of events, have fallen back upon the mystical doctrine that God is somehow on their side, and that opposing them thus takes on the character of blasphemy.

Character, Political, Presidential

Save among politicians it is no longer necessary for any educated American to profess belief in Thirteenth Century ideas

Ideas, Belief, Politician

The Gettysburg Adress has been included, of late, in several anthologies of poetry. It actually meets the major requirement of all poetry: It is a mellifluous and emotional statement of the obviously not true. The men who fought for self-determination at Gettysburg were not the Federals but the Confederates.

Peace, Determination, War

Setting aside the vast herd which shows no definable character at all, it seems to me that the minority distinguished by what is commonly regarded as an excess of sin is very much more admirable than the minority distinguished by an excess of virtue. My experience of the world has taught me that the average wine-bibbler is a far better fellow than the average prohibitionist, and that the average rogue is better company than the average poor drudge, and that the worst white-slave trader of my acquaintance is a decenter man than the best vice crusader.

Wine, Character, Men

The learned are seldom pretty fellows, and in many cases their appearance tends to discourage a love of study in the young.

Study, Appearance, Cases

The art of writing, like the art of love, runs all the way from a kind of routine hard to distinguish from piling bricks to a kind of frenzy closely related to delirium tremens.

Running, Art, Writing

H.L. Mencken (2013). “Minority Report”, p.27, Knopf

The average schoolmaster is and always must be essentially an ass, for how can one imagine an intelligent man engaging in so puerile an avocation.

Education, Intelligent, Men

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

It takes a long while for a naturally trustful person to reconcile himself to the idea that after all God will not help him

Sad, God, Long Distance Relationship

H.L. Mencken (2013). “Minority Report”, p.189, Knopf

When I mount the scaffold at last these will be my farewell words to the sheriff: Say what you will against me when I am gone, but don't forget to add, in common justice, that I was never converted to anything.

Life, Goodbye, Farewell

Baltimore Evening Sun, June 12, 1922.

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