H. L. Mencken Quotes - Page 13

• 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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• Shave a gorilla and it would be almost impossible, at twenty paces, to distinguish him from a heavyweight champion of the world. Skin a chimpanzee, and it would take an autopsy to prove he was not a theologian.

  H. L. Mencken

  Funny, Humor, Champion

  Baltimore Evening Sun, April 4, 1927.

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• I give you Chicago. It is not London and Harvard. It is not Paris and buttermilk. It is American in every chitling and sparerib. It is alive from snout to tail.

  H. L. Mencken

  Cities, Paris, Giving

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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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• All the great enterprises of the world are run by a few smart men: their aides and associates run down by rapid stages to the level of sheer morons. Everyone knows that this is true of government, but we often forget that it is equally true of private undertakings. In the average great bank, or railroad, or other corporation the burden of management lies upon a small group. The rest are ciphers.

  H. L. Mencken

  Running, Smart, Lying

  H.L. Mencken (2013). “Minority Report”, p.121, Knopf

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• A Sunday school is a prison in which children do penance for the evil conscience of their parents.

  H. L. Mencken

  Family, Children, School

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

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• The Old Testament, as everyone who has looked into it is aware, drips with blood; there is, indeed, no more bloody chronicle in all the literature of the world.

  H. L. Mencken

  Bible, Biblical, Blood

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• The scientist who yields anything to theology, however slight, is yielding to ignorance and false pretenses, and as certainly as if he granted that a horse-hair put into a bottle of water will turn into a snake.

  H. L. Mencken

  Religious, Horse, Ignorance

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• Any man who afflicts the human race with ideas must be prepared to see them misunderstood.

  H. L. Mencken

  Men, Race, Ideas

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• All government, of course, is against liberty.

  H. L. Mencken

  Government, Liberty, Courses

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• The best years are the forties; after fifty a man begins to deteriorate, but in the forties he is at the maximum of his villainy.

  H. L. Mencken

  Men, Years, Fifty

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• Friendship is a common belief in the same fallacies, mountebanks and hobgoblins.

  H. L. Mencken

  Friendship, Belief, Common

  H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.616, Vintage

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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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• Christian - One who is willing to serve three Gods, but draws the line at one wife.

  H. L. Mencken

  Christian, Wife, Religion

  "A Mencken Chrestomathy: His Own Selection of His Choicest Writing". Book by H. L. Mencken, 1949.

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• All American wars (except the Civil War) have been fought with the odds overwhelmingly in favor of the Americans. In the history of armed combat such affairs as the Mexican and Spanish-American Wars must be ranked, not as wars at all, but as organized assassinations. In the two World Wars, no American faced a bullet until his adversaries had been worn down by years of fighting others.

  H. L. Mencken

  Peace, War, Fighting

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• Penetrating so many secrets, we cease to believe in the unknowable. But there it sits nevertheless, calmly licking its chops

  H. L. Mencken

  Art, Believe, Knowledge

  H.L. Mencken (2013). “Minority Report”, p.363, Knopf

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• Deep within the heart of every evangelist lies the wreck of a car salesman.

  H. L. Mencken

  Lying, Heart, Car

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• Since the early days, [the church] has thrown itself violently against every effort to liberate the body and mind of man. It has been, at all times and everywhere, the habitual and incorrigible defender of bad governments, bad laws, bad social theories, bad institutions. It was, for centuries, an apologist for slavery, as it was an apologist for the divine right of kings.

  H. L. Mencken

  Kings, Men, Law

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• The great artists of the world are never Puritans, and seldom even ordinarily respectable.

  H. L. Mencken

  Art, Ymca, World

  Prejudices, First Series ch. 16 (1919)

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• Any man who, having a child or children he can't support, proceeds to have another should be sterilized at once.

  H. L. Mencken

  Children, Men, Support

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