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H. L. Mencken Quotes - Page 33

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

One does not arise from such a book as Sister Carrie with a smirk of satisfaction; one leaves it infinitely touched.

One does not arise from such a book as Sister Carrie with a smirk of satisfaction; one leaves it infinitely touched.

Sister, Book, Smirk

H.L. Mencken (1917). “A book of prefaces”, p.98, Рипол Классик

There is, in fact, no reason to believe that any given natural phenomenon, however marvelous it may seem today, will remain forever inexplicable. Soon or late the laws governing the production of life itself will be discovered in the laboratory, and man may set up business as a creator on his own account. The thing, indeed, is not only conceivable; it is even highly probable.

Believe, Health, Men

What are the characters that I discern most clearly in the so-called Anglo-Saxon type of man? I may answer at once that two stickout above all others. One is his curious and apparently incurable incompetence--his congenital inability to do any difficult thing easily and well, whether it be isolating a bacillus or writing a sonata. The other is his astounding susceptibility to fears and alarms--in short, his hereditary cowardice.... There is no record in history of any Anglo-Saxon nation entering upon any great war without allies.

War, Writing, Character

H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.173, Vintage

Complete masculinity and stupidity are often indistinguishable.

Stupidity, Masculinity

H. L. Mencken (2015). “In Defense of Women: Human Sexuality”, p.8, 谷月社

Two simple principles lie at the bottom of the whole matter, and they may be precipitated into two rules. The first is that, when there is a choice, the milder drink is always the better-not merely the safer but the better. The second is that no really enlightened drinker ever takes a drink at a time when he has any work to do. There is, of course, more to it than this; but these are sufficient for the beginner, and even the virtuoso never outgrows them.

Lying, Drinking, Simple

The great difficulty about keeping the Ten Commandments is that no man can keep them and be a gentleman.

Men, Gentleman, Difficulty

Women have simple tastes. They get pleasure out of the conversation of children in arms and men in love.

Love, Children, Men

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

How to Drink Like a Gentleman: The Things to Do and the Things Not To, as Learned in 30 Years' Extensive Research.

Drinking, Years, Gentleman

There is no record in human history of a happy philosopher: they exist only in romantic legend.

History, Records, Philosopher

"Mencken Chrestomathy".

What is the professor's function? To pass on to numskulls a body of so-called knowledge that is fragmentary, unimportant, and largely untrue.

Body, Professors, Function

One of the most mawkish of human delusions is the notion that friendship should be eternal, or, at all events, life-long, and that any act which puts a term to it is somehow discreditable.

Long, Events, Should

H. L. Mencken (2009). “Prejudices: Third Series”, p.276, Cosimo, Inc.

Creator: A comedian whose audience is afraid to laugh.

Freedom, Laughing, Comedian

"A Mencken Chrestomathy". Book by H. L. Mencken, ch. 30, 1949.

It is almost impossible for an Anglo-Saxon to write of sex without being dirty.

Sex, Dirty, Writing

H.L. Mencken (2013). “Second Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.195, Vintage

The allurement that women hold out to men is precisely the allurement that Cape Hatteras holds out to sailors; they are enormously dangerous and hence enormously fascinating.

Women, Sailor, Capes

H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.40, Vintage

There is a saying in Baltimore that crabs may be prepared in fifty ways and that all of them are good.

Religion, Fifty, May

The curse of man, and the cause of nearly all his woe, is his stupendous capacity for believing the incredible.

Believe, Men, Woe

The wholly manly man lacks the wit necessary to give objective form to his soaring and secret dreams, and the wholly womanly woman is apt to be too cynical a creature to dream at all.

Dream, Women, Giving

H. L. Mencken (2015). “In Defense of Women: Human Sexuality”, p.9, 谷月社

The essence of self-fulfillment and autonomous culture is an unshakable egotism.

Self, Essence, Culture

I write in order to attain that feeling of tension relieved and function achieved which a cow enjoys on giving milk.

Writing, Order, Giving

When I hear a man applauded by the mob I always feel a pang of pity for him. All he has to do to be hissed is to live long enough.

Humility, Men, Long

H.L. Mencken (2013). “Minority Report”, p.352, Knopf

Every man sees in his relatives, and especially in his cousins, a series of grotesque caricatures of himself.

Family, Cousin, Men

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

Whenever a reporter is assigned to cover a Methodist conference, he comes home an atheist.

Atheist, Home, Atheism

This passion, so unordered and yet so potent, explains the capacity for teaching that one frequently observes in scientific men of high attainments in their specialties-for example, Huxley, Ostwald, Karl Ludwig, Virchow, Billroth, Jowett, William G. Sumner, Halsted and Osler-men who knew nothing whatever about the so-called science of pedagogy, and would have derided its alleged principles if they had heard them stated.

Dream, Teaching, Passion

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

There are no ugly cigars, only ugly smokers.

Ugly, Cigar, Smokers

Never underestimate the bad taste of the American public

Taste, Underestimate, Never Underestimate

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