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H. L. Mencken Quotes about Literature

All H. L. Mencken 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 quotes 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

Don't overestimate the decency of the human race.

Don't overestimate the decency of the human race.

Race, Literature, Dignity

The only really happy folk are married women and single men.

Men, Literature, Married

Man is always looking for someone to boast to; woman is always looking for a shoulder to put her head on.

Men, Literature, Shoulders

H. L. Mencken (2015). “In Defense of Women: Human Sexuality”, p.65, 谷月社

Theology is the effort to explain the unknowable in terms of the not worth knowing.

Knowing, Effort, Literature

The worst government is often the most moral. One composed of cynics is often very tolerant and humane. But when fanatics are on top there is no limit to oppression.

Government, Usa, Literature

"The Oxford Dictionary of Political Quotations". Book edited by Antony Jay, 1996.

A society made up of individuals who were all capable of original thought would probably be unendurable.

Society, Original Thought, Literature

H.L. Mencken (2013). “Minority Report”, p.20, Knopf

One may no more live in the world without picking up the moral prejudices of the world than one will be able to go to hell without perspiring.

Prejudice, Literature, World

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

Platitude: an idea (a) that is admitted to be true by everyone, and (b) that is not true.

Ideas, Cynical, Literature

A Book of Burlesques ch. 11 (1920)

If there was ever a dissenter from the national optimismit was surely Edgar Allan Poe--without question the bravest and mostoriginal, if perhaps also the least orderly and judicious, of all the critics that we have produced.

Literature, Allan Poe, Critics

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.

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

Our literature, despite several false starts that promised much, is chiefly remarkable, now as always, for its respectable mediocrity.

Mediocrity, Literature, Remarkable

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

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

Every man is his own hell.

Men, Literature, Hell

H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.617, Vintage

I never lecture, not because I am shy or a bad speaker, but simply because I detest the sort of people who go to lectures and don't want to meet them.

People, Shy, Literature

A great literature is thus chiefly the product of doubting and inquiring minds in revolt against the immovable certainties of the nation.

Mind, Literature, Inquiring

"Prejudices Second Series".

I never smoked a cigarette until I was nine.

Literature, Nine, Cigarette

Who ever heard, indeed, of an autobiography that was not (interesting)? I can recall none in all the literature of the world

Interesting, Literature, World

A bad man is the sort who weeps every time he speaks of a good woman.

Men, Good Woman, Literature

As if paralyzed by the national fear of ideas, the democratic distrust of whatever strikes beneath the prevailing platitudes, it evades all resolute and honest dealing with what, after all, must be every healthy literature's elementary materials.

Ideas, Healthy, Literature

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

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