H. L. Mencken Quotes - Page 27

• To argue that the gaps in knowledge which confront the seeker must be filled, not by patient inquiry, but by intuition or revelation, is simply to give ignorance a gratuitous and preposterous dignity.

  H. L. Mencken

  Ignorance, Giving, Intuition

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• There are no institutions in America: there are only fashions.

  H. L. Mencken

  Fashion, America, Institutions

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

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• [A formula for answering controversial letters -- without even reading the letters:] Dear Sir (or Madame): You may be right.

  H. L. Mencken

  Reading, Letters, May

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• The most common of all follies is to believe in the palpably untrue.

  H. L. Mencken

  Believe, Common, Folly

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• In Baltimore, soft crabs are always fried (or broiled) in the altogether, with maybe a small jock-strap of bacon added.

  H. L. Mencken

  Food, Cooking, Jocks

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• High-toned humanitarians constantly overestimate the sufferings of those they sympathize with.

  H. L. Mencken

  Suffering, Humanitarianism, Overestimate

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• In the long run all battles are lost, and so are all wars.

  H. L. Mencken

  Running, War, Long

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• Better than the rest of us, they [the Jews] sensed what was ahead for their people.

  H. L. Mencken

  People, Jew

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

  H. L. Mencken

  Mediocrity, Literature, Remarkable

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

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• If I ever mary, it will be on a suddn impulse - as aman shoots himself

  H. L. Mencken

  Funny, Marriage, Suicidal

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• The first kiss is stolen by the man; the last is begged by the woman.

  H. L. Mencken

  Kissing, Men, First Kiss

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• The Americans are the illegitimate children of the English.

  H. L. Mencken

  Children, America, Illegitimate Child

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• Puccini - silver macaroni, exquisitely tangled.

  H. L. Mencken

  Tangled, Silver, Composer

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• A poet over 30 is pathetic

  H. L. Mencken

  Poet, Pathetic

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• Absence is the dark-room in which lovers develop negatives.

  H. L. Mencken

  Dark, Rooms, Lovers

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• Henry James would have been vastly improved as a novelist by a few whiffs of the Chicago stockyard.

  H. L. Mencken

  Novelists, Chicago, Has Beens

  H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.500, Vintage

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• Man makes love by braggadocio, and woman makes love by listening.

  H. L. Mencken

  Women, Men, Making Love

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• Nothing can come out of an artist that is not in the man.

  H. L. Mencken

  Writing, Artist, Men

  H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.525, Vintage

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• Suicide is a belated acquiescence in the opinion of one's wife's relatives.

  H. L. Mencken

  Suicide, Wife, Acquiescence

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

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• The worshiper is the father of the gods.

  H. L. Mencken

  Father, Religion, Dignity

  H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.178, Vintage

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• When a husband's story is believed, he begins to suspect his wife.

  H. L. Mencken

  Funny, Husband, Wife

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

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• It is only doubt that creates.

  H. L. Mencken

  Doubt

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

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• No form of liberty is worth a darn [sic] which doesn't give us the right to do wrong now and then.

  H. L. Mencken

  Giving, Liberty, Now And Then

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• To be in love is merely to be in a state of perceptual anesthesia - to mistake an ordinary young woman for a goddess.

  H. L. Mencken

  Love, Funny, Mistake

  H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.57, Vintage

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• Happiness is the china shop; love is the bull.

  H. L. Mencken

  Love, Happiness, Anniversary

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

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