H. L. Mencken Quotes - Page 12

• Every step in human progress, from the first feeble stirrings in the abyss of time, has been opposed by the great majority of men. Every valuable thing that has been added to the store of man's possessions has been derided by them when it was new, and destroyed by them when they had the power. They have fought every new truth ever heard of, and they have killed every truth-seeker who got into their hands.

  H. L. Mencken

  Men, Hands, Progress

  "Homo Neanderthalensis Baltimore Sun". "The Impossible Mencken" by H. L. Mencken, June 29, 1925.

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• All of the American's foreign wars have been fought with foes either too weak to resist them or too heavily engaged elsewhere to make more than a half-hearted attempt. The combats with Mexico and Spain were not wars; they were simply lynchings.

  H. L. Mencken

  War, Lynching, Political

  H. L. Mencken (2009). “Prejudices: Third Series”, p.43, Cosimo, Inc.

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• The cosmos is a gigantic flywheel making 10,000 revolutions per minute. Man is a sick fly taking a dizzy ride on it.

  H. L. Mencken

  Freedom, Men, Sick

  Smart Set, Dec. 1920

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• The best teacher of children, in brief, is one who is essentially childlike.

  H. L. Mencken

  Teacher, Children, Best Teacher

  H. L. Mencken (2009). “Prejudices: Third Series”, p.248, Cosimo, Inc.

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• There is nothing worse than an idle hour, with no occupation offering. People who have many such hours are simply animals waiting docilely for death. We all come to that state soon or late. It is the curse of senility.

  H. L. Mencken

  Death, Animal, Offering

  H.L. Mencken (2013). “Minority Report”, p.86, Knopf

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• As for Lindbergh, another eminent servant of science, all he proved by his gaudy flight across the Atlantic was that God takes care of those who have been so fortunate as to come into the world foolish. Expressing skepticism that adventure does not necessarily contribute to scientific knowledge.

  H. L. Mencken

  Adventure, World, Care

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• Skin diseases are something doctors like, the patient neither dies nor gets well.

  H. L. Mencken

  Get Well, Doctors, Skins

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• Christian endeavor is notoriously hard on female pulchritude.

  H. L. Mencken

  Christian, Atheism, Female

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• Los Angeles: nineteen suburbs in search of a metropolis.

  H. L. Mencken

  Nineteen, Los Angeles, Metropolis

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• Unionism, seldom if ever, uses such powers as it has to ensure better work; almost always it devotes a large part of that power to safeguard bad work.

  H. L. Mencken

  Quality, Use, Unionism

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• The essential dilemma of education is to be found in the fact that the sort of man (or woman) who knows a given subject sufficiently well to teach it is usually unwilling to do so.

  H. L. Mencken

  Men, Essentials, Facts

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• Watching two women kiss is like watching two prizefighters shake hands.

  H. L. Mencken

  Life, Kissing, Hands

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• The so-called Philosophy of India is even more blowsy and senseless than the metaphysics of the West. It is at war with everything we know of the workings of the human mind, and with every sound idea formulated by mankind. If it prevailed in the whole modern world we'd still be in the Thirteenth Century; nay, we'd be back among the Egyptians of the pyramid age. Its only coherent contribution to Western thought has been theosophy-and theosophy is as idiotic as Christian Science. It has absolutely nothing to offer a civilized white man.

  H. L. Mencken

  Christian, Philosophy, War

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• All the charming and beautiful things, from the Song of Songs, to bouillabaisse, and from the nine Beethoven symphonies to the Martini cocktail, have been given to humanity by men who, when the hour came, turned from tap water to something with color in it, and more in it than mere oxygen and hydrogen.

  H. L. Mencken

  Beautiful, Song, Food

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• College football is a game which would be much more interesting if the faculty played instead of the students, and even more interesting if the trustees played. There would be a great increase in broken arms, legs, and necks, and simultaneously an appreciable diminution in the loss to humanity.

  H. L. Mencken

  Football, Humorous, Loss

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• There is no possibility whatsoever of reconciling science and theology, at least in Christendom. Either Jesus arose from the dead or He didn't. If he did, then Christianity becomes plausible; if He did not, then it is sheer nonsense. I defy any genuine scientists to say that he believes in the Resurrection, or indeed in any other cardinal dogma of the Christian system.

  H. L. Mencken

  Christian, Jesus, Believe

  H.L. Mencken (2013). “Minority Report”, p.120, Knopf

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• We must be prepared to pay a price for freedom, for no price that is ever asked for it is half the cost of doing without it.

  H. L. Mencken

  Cost, Half, Pay

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• Morality is the theory that every human act must be either right or wrong, and that 99 % of them are wrong.

  H. L. Mencken

  Sad, Motherhood, Religion

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

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• When I think of anything properly describable as a beautiful idea, it is always in the form of music. I have written and printed probably 10,000,000 words in English but all the same I shall die an inarticulate man, for my best ideas beset me in a language I know only vaguely and speak only as a child.

  H. L. Mencken

  Beautiful, Children, Men

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• Capitalism under democracy has a further advantage: its enemies, even when it is attacked, are scattered and weak, and it is usually easily able to array one half of them against the other half, and thus dispose of both.

  H. L. Mencken

  Democracies Have, Enemy, Democracy

  H. L. Mencken (2013). “Notes On Democracy”, p.50, Read Books Ltd

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• Women in general seem to me to be appreciably more intelligent than men. A great many of them suffer in silence from the imbecilities of their husbands.

  H. L. Mencken

  Husband, Intelligent, Men

  H.L. Mencken (2012). “Diary of H. L. Mencken”, p.248, Vintage

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• Syllogisms а la mode - If you are against labor racketeers, then you are against the working man. If you are against demagogues, then you are against democracy. If you are against Christianity, then you are against God. If you are against trying a can of Old Dr. Quack's Cancer Salve, then you are in favor of letting Uncle Julius die.

  H. L. Mencken

  Uncles, Cancer, Men

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• Whenever a husband and wife begin to discuss their marriage they are giving evidence at a coroner's inquest.

  H. L. Mencken

  Marriage, Husband, Giving

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

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• ...no man of genuinely superior intelligence has ever been an actor. Even supposing a young man of appreciable mental powers to be lured upon the stage, as philosophers are occasionally lured into bordellos, his mind would be inevitably and almost immediately destroyed by the gaudy nonsense issuing from his mouth every night.

  H. L. Mencken

  Men, Night, Mind

  H.L. MENCKEN (1958). “PREJUDICES A SELECTION”

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• There is only one honest impulse at the bottom of Puritanism, and that is the impulse to punish the man with a superior capacity for happiness.

  H. L. Mencken

  Happiness, Men, Religion

  H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.163, Vintage

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