H. L. Mencken Quotes - Page 26

• I believe that all government is evil, in that all government must necessarily make war on liberty, and that the democratic government is at least as bad as any of the other forms.

  H. L. Mencken

  War, Believe, Government

  7 Copy quote

• Here the only genuine conflict is between true believers. Of a given text in Holy Writ one faction may say this thing and another that, but both agree unreservedly that the text itself is impeccable, and neither in the midst of the most violent disputation would venture to accuse the other of doubt. To call a man a doubter in these parts is equal to accusing him of cannibalism. Even the infidel Scopes himself is not charged with any such infamy.

  H. L. Mencken

  Men, Doubt, Atheism

  7 Copy quote

• One yearns unspeakably for a composer who gives out his pair of honest themes, and then develops them unashamed, and then hangs a brisk coda to them, and then shuts up.

  H. L. Mencken

  Giving, Pairs, Honest

  H. L. Mencken (2000). “H.L. Mencken's Smart Set Criticism”, p.99, Regnery Publishing

  4 Copy quote

• To large numbers of American citizens life in certain parts of the country becomes intolerably hazardous. They may be seized on any pretext, however flimsy, and put to death with horrible tortures. No government pretending to be civilized can go on condoning such atrocities. Either it must make every possible effort to put them down or it must suffer the scorn and contempt of Christendom.

  H. L. Mencken

  Country, Government, Lynching

  21 Copy quote

• The only liberty an inferior man really cherishes is the liberty to quit work, stretch out in the sun, and scratch himself.

  H. L. Mencken

  Work, Stress, Men

  H.L. Mencken (2013). “Minority Report”, p.250, Knopf

  7 Copy quote

• I believe there is a limit beyond which free speech cannot go, but it's a limit that's very seldom mentioned. It's the point where free speech begins to collide with the right to privacy. I don't think there are any other conditions to free speech. I've got a right to say and believe anything I please, but I haven't got a right to press it on anybody else. .... Nobody's got a right to be a nuisance to his neighbors.

  H. L. Mencken

  Freedom, Believe, Thinking

  11 Copy quote

• Evil: That which one believes of others. It is a sin to believe evil of others, but it is seldom a mistake

  H. L. Mencken

  Mistake, Believe, Evil

  A Little Book in C Major ch. 5 (1916)

  7 Copy quote

• I go on working for the same reason that a hen goes on laying eggs. There is in every living creature an obscure but powerful impulse to active functioning. Life demands to be lived. Inaction, save as a measure of recuperation between bursts of activity, is painful and dangerous to the healthy organism- in fact, it is almost impossible. Only the dying can be really idle.

  H. L. Mencken

  Life, Success, Powerful

  7 Copy quote

• The worst of marriage is that it makes a woman believe that all men are just as easy to fool.

  H. L. Mencken

  Marriage, Believe, Men

  "A little book in C major".

  7 Copy quote

• Man's objection to love is that it dies hard: women's, that when it is dead it stays dead.

  H. L. Mencken

  Women, Love Is, Objections

  "Mencken Chrestomathy".

  7 Copy quote

• A man's women folk, whatever their outward show of respect for his merit and authority, always regard him secretly as an ass, and with something akin to pity. His most gaudy sayings and doings seldom deceive them; they see the actual man within, and know him for a shallow and pathetic fellow. In this fact, perhaps, lies one of the best proofs of feminine intelligence, or, as the common phrase makes it, feminine intuition.

  H. L. Mencken

  Women, Lying, Intuition

  H. L. Mencken (2015). “In Defense of Women: Human Sexuality”, p.6, 谷月社

  7 Copy quote

• To wage a war for a purely moral reason is as absurd as to ravish a woman for a purely moral reason

  H. L. Mencken

  Peace, War, Moral

  7 Copy quote

• When women kiss it always reminds one of prize fighters shaking hands.

  H. L. Mencken

  Funny, Women, Humor

  A Little Book in C Major ch. 6 (1916)

  11 Copy quote

• Every man is his own hell.

  H. L. Mencken

  Men, Literature, Hell

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

  9 Copy quote

• School teachers, taking them by and large, are probably the most ignorant and stupid class of men in the whole group of mental workers.

  H. L. Mencken

  Teacher, Stupid, School

  H. L. Mencken (2013). “The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche”, p.121, Simon and Schuster

  7 Copy quote

• No politician is ever benefited by saving money; it is spending it that makes him.

  H. L. Mencken

  Saving, Saving Money, Politician

  H.L. Mencken (2013). “Minority Report”, p.242, Knopf

  4 Copy quote

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

  H. L. Mencken

  Drinking, Years, Gentleman

  4 Copy quote
• 

  A nun, at best, is only half a woman, just as a priest is only half a man.

  H. L. Mencken

  Men, Half, Priests

  H.L. Mencken (2013). “Minority Report”, p.242, Knopf

  18 Copy quote

• It is, indeed, one of the capital tragedies of youth-and youth is the time of real tragedy-that the young are thrown mainly with adults they do not quite respect.

  H. L. Mencken

  Real, Tragedy, Adults

  H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.308, Vintage

  9 Copy quote

• Every failure teaches a man something, to wit, that he will probably fail again.

  H. L. Mencken

  Failure, Learning, Men

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

  4 Copy quote

• Taxation, for example, is eternally lively; it concerns nine-tenths of us more directly than either smallpox or golf, and has just as much drama in it; moreover, it has been mellowed and made gay by as many gaudy, preposterous theories

  H. L. Mencken

  Drama, Gay, Golf

  H. L. Mencken (2009). “Prejudices: Third Series”, p.279, Cosimo, Inc.

  9 Copy quote

• Under the pressure of fanaticism, and with the mob complacently applauding the show, democratic law tends more and more to be grounded upon the maxim that every citizen is, by nature, a traitor, a libertine, and a scoundrel. In order to dissuade him from his evil-doing the police power is extended until it surpasses anything ever heard of in the oriental monarchies of antiquity.

  H. L. Mencken

  Order, Law, Evil

  H. L. Mencken (2013). “Notes On Democracy”, p.45, Read Books Ltd

  8 Copy quote

• All [zoos] actually offer to the public in return for the taxes spent upon them is a form of idle and witless amusement, compared to which a visit to a penitentiary, or even to a State legislature in session, is informing, stimulating and ennobling.

  H. L. Mencken

  Zoos, Freedom, Political

  H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.365, Vintage

  11 Copy quote

• A mood of constructive criticism being upon me, I propose forthwith that the method of choosing legislators now prevailing in the United States be abandoned and that the method used in choosing juries be substituted. That is to say, I propose that the men who make our laws be chosen by chance and against will of all the rest of us, as now.

  H. L. Mencken

  Men, Law, Criticism

  4 Copy quote

• When we appropriate money from the public funds to pay for vaccinating a horde of negroes, we do not do it because we have any sympathy for them or because we crave their blessings, but simply because we don't want them to be falling ill of smallpox

  H. L. Mencken

  Sympathy, Fall, Blessing

  H. L. Mencken (2003). “Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche”, p.165, See Sharp Press

  16 Copy quote

You May Also Like:

George Jean Nathan

Friedrich Nietzsche

Mark Twain

Clarence Darrow

Sinclair Lewis

Ambrose Bierce

John T. Scopes

Will Rogers