H. L. Mencken Quotes - Page 19

• What reason is there for believing that a high death rate, in itself, is undesirable? To my knowledge none whatever. The plain fact is that, if it be suitably selective, it is extremely salubrious. Suppose it could be so arranged that it ran to 100% a year among politicians, executive secretaries, drive chairmen, and the homicidally insane? What rational man would object?

  H. L. Mencken

  Believe, Men, Years

  H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.344, Vintage

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• Wife: a former sweetheart.

  H. L. Mencken

  Wife, Sweetheart, Former

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• An altruist is one who would be sincerely sorry to see his neighbor's children devoured by wolves.

  H. L. Mencken

  Children, Sorry, Would Be

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• There are some people who read too much: The bibliobibuli.

  H. L. Mencken

  People, Too Much

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• Nothing is so abject and pathetic as a politician who has lost his job, save only a retired stud-horse.

  H. L. Mencken

  Horse, Jobs, Society

  H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.622, Vintage

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• It is only doubt that creates. It is only the minority that counts.

  H. L. Mencken

  Doubt, Minorities

  H. L. Mencken (2003). “The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche”, p.94, See Sharp Press

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• Democracy is grounded upon so childish a complex of fallacies that they must be protected by a rigid system of taboos, else even halfwits would argue it to pieces. Its first concern must be to penalize the free play of ideas.

  H. L. Mencken

  Play, Ideas, Democracy

  In Defense of Women, rev. ed., introduction (1922)

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• It seems to me that society usually wins. There are, to be sure, free spirits in the world, but their freedom, in the last analysis, is not much greater than that of a canary in a cage. They may leap from perch to perch; they may bathe and guzzle at their will; they may flap their wings and sing. But they are still in the cage, and soon or late it conquers them.

  H. L. Mencken

  Winning, Wings, Free Spirit

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• The value the world sets upon motives is often grossly unjust and inaccurate.

  H. L. Mencken

  World, Unjust, Motive

  H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.12, Vintage

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• Without a doubt there are women who would vote intelligently. There are also men who knit socks beautifully.

  H. L. Mencken

  Men, Doubt, Vote

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• The life of man in this world is like the life of a fly in a room filled with 100 boys, each armed with a fly-swatter.

  H. L. Mencken

  Philosophical, Boys, Men

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• It is my conviction that no normal man ever fell in love, within the ordinary meaning of the term, after the age of thirty.

  H. L. Mencken

  Love, Men, Kidneys

  "Prejudices". Fourth Series,

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• It is impossible to believe that the same God who permitted His own son to die a bachelor regards celibacy as an actual sin.

  H. L. Mencken

  God, Believe, Son

  H. L. Mencken (2012). “In Defense of Women”, p.47, Courier Corporation

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• The artist is not a reporter, but a Great Teacher. It is not his business to depict the world as it is, but as it ought to be.

  H. L. Mencken

  Teacher, Artist, World

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

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• [Thomas Henry] Huxley, I believe, was the greatest Englishman of the Nineteenth Century—perhaps the greatest Englishman of all time. When one thinks of him, one thinks inevitably of such men as Goethe and Aristotle. For in him there was that rich, incomparable blend of intelligence and character, of colossal knowledge and high adventurousness, of instinctive honesty and indomitable courage which appears in mankind only once in a blue moon. There have been far greater scientists, even in England, but there has never been a scientist who was a greater man.

  H. L. Mencken

  Honesty, Believe, Character

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• On the one hand, we may tell the truth, regardless of consequences, and on the other hand we may mellow it and sophisticate it to make it humane and tolerable.

  H. L. Mencken

  Hands, May, Telling The Truth

  H. L. Mencken (1924). “Prejudices Fourth Series”

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• Unquestionably, there is progress. The average American now pays out twice as much in taxes as he formerly got in wages.

  H. L. Mencken

  Humorous, Average, America

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• Our whole practical government is grounded in mob psychology and the Boobus Americanus will follow any command that promises to make him safer.

  H. L. Mencken

  Government, America, Psychology

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• The harsh, useful things of the world, from pulling teeth to digging potatoes, are best done by men who are as starkly sober as so many convicts in the death-house, but the lovely and useless things, the charming and exhilarating things, are best done by men with, as the phrase is, a few sheets in the wind.

  H. L. Mencken

  Drinking, Men, Wind

  H. L. MENCKEN (1924). “PREJUDICES FOURTH SERIES”

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• It is not a sign of communal well-being when men turn to their government to execute all their business for them, but rather a sign of decay, as in the United States today. The state, indeed, is but one of the devices that a really healthy community sets up to manage its affairs.

  H. L. Mencken

  Men, Community, Healthy

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• Wherever I sit is the head of the table.

  H. L. Mencken

  Work, Tables

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• A woman wishes to mother a man simply because she sees into his helplessness, his need of an amiable environment, his touching self-delusion.

  H. L. Mencken

  Mother, Men, Self

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

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• It is difficult to imagine anyone having any real hopes for the human race in the face of the fact that the great majority of men still believe that the universe is run by a gaseous vertebrate of astronomical heft and girth, who is nevertheless interested in the minutest details of the private conduct of even the meanest man.

  H. L. Mencken

  Running, Fear, Real

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• No democratic delusion is more fatuous than that which holds that all men are capable of reason, and hence susceptible to conversion by evidence. If religions depended upon evidence for their prolongation, then all of them would collapse.

  H. L. Mencken

  Men, Reason, Democratic

  H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.353, Vintage

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• The real charm of the United States is that it is the only comic country ever heard of.

  H. L. Mencken

  Country, Real, United States

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