H. L. Mencken Quotes - Page 30

• Temptation is an irresistible force at work on a movable body.

  H. L. Mencken

  Work, Temptation, Body

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• A prohibitionist is the sort of man one couldn't care to drink with, even if he drank.

  H. L. Mencken

  Drinking, Food, Men

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• Life is a dead-end street.

  H. L. Mencken

  Life, Dead Ends, Streets

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• Each party steals so many articles of faith from the other, and the candidates spend so much time making each other's speeches, that by the time election day is past there is nothing much to do save turn the sitting rascals out and let a new gang in.

  H. L. Mencken

  Party, Past, Political

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• A professor must have a theory as a dog must have fleas.

  H. L. Mencken

  Dog, Fleas, Professors

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

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• Husbands never become good; they merely become proficient.

  H. L. Mencken

  Husband, Good Husband

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• I know of no American who starts from a higher level of aspiration than the journalist. . . . He plans to be both an artist and a moralist -- a master of lovely words and merchant of sound ideas. He ends, commonly, as the most depressing jackass of his community -- that is, if his career goes on to what is called a success.

  H. L. Mencken

  Depressing, Artist, Careers

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• The objection to Puritans is not that they try to make us think as they do, but that they try to make us do as they think.

  H. L. Mencken

  Thinking, Religion, Trying

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

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• Public opinion, in its raw state, gushes out in the immemorial form of the mob's fear. It is piped into central factories, and there it is flavoured and colored and put into cans.

  H. L. Mencken

  Public Opinion, Factories, States

  "Notes on Democracy". Book by H. L. Mencken, 1926.

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• Of government, at least in democratic states, it may be said briefly that it is an agency engaged wholesale, and as a matter of solemn duty, in the performance of acts which all self-respecting individuals refrain from as a matter of common decency.

  H. L. Mencken

  Freedom, Agency, Government

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• Truth - Something somehow discreditable to someone.

  H. L. Mencken

  Freedom, Democracy

  "A Mencken Chrestomathy". Book by H. L. Mencken, 1949.

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• The most valuable of all human possessions, next to a superior and disdainful air, is the reputation of being well-to-do.

  H. L. Mencken

  Funny, Life, Success

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

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• The lunatic fringe wags the underdog.

  H. L. Mencken

  Inspirational, Funny, Underdog

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

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• When I mount the scaffold at last these will be my farewell words to the sheriff: Say what you will against me when I am gone, but don't forget to add, in common justice, that I was never converted to anything.

  H. L. Mencken

  Life, Goodbye, Farewell

  Baltimore Evening Sun, June 12, 1922.

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• A man always blames the woman who fools him. In the same way he blames the door he walks into in the dark.

  H. L. Mencken

  Funny Inspirational, Dark, Men

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

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• It takes a long while for a naturally trustful person to reconcile himself to the idea that after all God will not help him

  H. L. Mencken

  Sad, God, Long Distance Relationship

  H.L. Mencken (2013). “Minority Report”, p.189, Knopf

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• An author, like any other so-called artist, is a man in whom the normal vanity of all men is so vastly exaggerated that he finds it a sheer impossibility to hold it in. His over-powering impulse is to gyrate before his fellow men, flapping his wings and emitting defiant yells. This being forbidden by the police of all civilized nations, he takes it out by putting his yells on paper. Such is the thing called self-expression.

  H. L. Mencken

  Men, Artist, Self

  H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.466, Vintage

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• The truth is that the scientific value of Polar exploration is greatly exaggerated. The thing that takes men on such hazardous trips is really not any thirst for knowledge, but simply a yearning for adventure. ... A Polar explorer always talks grandly of sacrificing his fingers and toes to science. It is an amiable pretention, but there is no need to take it seriously.

  H. L. Mencken

  Adventure, Sacrifice, Men

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• The movies today are too rich to have any room for genuine artists. They produce a few passable craftsmen, but no artists. Can you imagine a Beethoven making $100, 000 a year?

  H. L. Mencken

  Artist, Years, Today

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• Jealousy is the theory that some other fellow has just as little taste.

  H. L. Mencken

  Jealous, Littles, Taste

  "A Mencken Chrestomathy". Book by H. L. Mencken, 1949.

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• Whenever I write anything that sets up controversy its meaning is distorted almost instantly. Even the editorial writers of newspapers seem to be unable to understand the plainest sentence.

  H. L. Mencken

  Writing, Newspapers, Controversy

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• I drink exactly as much as I want, and one drink more.

  H. L. Mencken

  Drinking, Alcohol, Want

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• A great literature is thus chiefly the product of doubting and inquiring minds in revolt against the immovable certainties of the nation.

  H. L. Mencken

  Mind, Literature, Inquiring

  "Prejudices Second Series".

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• I have often argued that a poet more than thirty years old is simply an overgrown child. I begin to suspect that there may be some truth in it.

  H. L. Mencken

  Children, Years, May

  H.L. Mencken (2013). “Minority Report”, p.19, Knopf

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• If there had been any formidable body of cannibals in the country, Harry Truman would have promised to provide them with free missionaries fattened at the taxpayer's expense.

  H. L. Mencken

  Country, Harry Truman, Body

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