H. L. Mencken Quotes - Page 33

• Who ever heard, indeed, of an autobiography that was not (interesting)? I can recall none in all the literature of the world

  H. L. Mencken

  Interesting, Literature, World

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• A bad man is the sort who weeps every time he speaks of a good woman.

  H. L. Mencken

  Men, Good Woman, Literature

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• I hate all sports as rabidly as a person who likes sports hates common sense.

  H. L. Mencken

  Sports, Hate, Common Sense

  Quoted in Fred Metcalfe The Penguin Dictionary of Modern Humorous Quotations (1986).

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• There are men so philosophical that they can see humor in their own toothaches. But there has never lived a man so philosophical that he could see the toothache in his own humor.

  H. L. Mencken

  Philosophical, Humor, Men

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• I know of no human being who has a better time than an eager and energetic young reporter.

  H. L. Mencken

  Young, Energetic, Humans

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• 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.

  H. L. Mencken

  Respect, Men, Merit

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

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• Two simple principles lie at the bottom of the whole matter, and they may be precipitated into two rules. The first is that, when there is a choice, the milder drink is always the better-not merely the safer but the better. The second is that no really enlightened drinker ever takes a drink at a time when he has any work to do. There is, of course, more to it than this; but these are sufficient for the beginner, and even the virtuoso never outgrows them.

  H. L. Mencken

  Lying, Drinking, Simple

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• Great artists are modest almost as seldom as they are faithful to their wives.

  H. L. Mencken

  Artist, Wife, Faithful

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• What is the professor's function? To pass on to numskulls a body of so-called knowledge that is fragmentary, unimportant, and largely untrue.

  H. L. Mencken

  Body, Professors, Function

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• The notion that science does not concern itself with first causes - that it leaves the field to theology or metaphysics, and confines itself to mere effects - this notion has no support in the plain facts. If it could, science would explain the origin of life on earth at once - and there is every reason to believe that it will do so on some not too remote tomorrow. To argue that gaps in knowledge which will 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

  Believe, Ignorance, Origin Of Life

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• The great difficulty about keeping the Ten Commandments is that no man can keep them and be a gentleman.

  H. L. Mencken

  Men, Gentleman, Difficulty

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• It is almost impossible for an Anglo-Saxon to write of sex without being dirty.

  H. L. Mencken

  Sex, Dirty, Writing

  H.L. Mencken (2013). “Second Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.195, Vintage

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• I write in order to attain that feeling of tension relieved and function achieved which a cow enjoys on giving milk.

  H. L. Mencken

  Writing, Order, Giving

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• To be happy one must be (a) well fed, unhounded by sordid cares, at ease in Zion, (b) full of a comfortable feeling of superiority to the masses of one's fellow men, and (c) delicately and unceasingly amused according to one's taste. It is my contention that, if this definition be accepted, there is no country in the world wherein a man constituted as I am - a man of my peculiar weakness, vanities, appetites, and aversions - can be so happy as he can be in the United States.

  H. L. Mencken

  Country, Men, Vanity

  "On Being An American". Book by H. L. Mencken, 1922.

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• There is no record in human history of a happy philosopher: they exist only in romantic legend.

  H. L. Mencken

  History, Records, Philosopher

  "Mencken Chrestomathy".

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• The highfalutin aims of democracy, whether real or imaginary, are always assumed to be identical with its achievements. This, of course, is sheer hallucination. Not one of those aims, not even the aim of giving every adult a vote, has been realized. It has no more made men wise and free than Christianity has made them good.

  H. L. Mencken

  Wise, Real, Men

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• There are no ugly cigars, only ugly smokers.

  H. L. Mencken

  Ugly, Cigar, Smokers

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• The common notion that free speech prevails in the United States always makes me laugh.

  H. L. Mencken

  Laughing, United States, Speech

  H.L. Mencken (2012). “Diary of H. L. Mencken”, p.635, Vintage

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• Every man sees in his relatives, and especially in his cousins, a series of grotesque caricatures of himself.

  H. L. Mencken

  Family, Cousin, Men

  H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.15, Vintage

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• The essence of self-fulfillment and autonomous culture is an unshakable egotism.

  H. L. Mencken

  Self, Essence, Culture

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• There is a saying in Baltimore that crabs may be prepared in fifty ways and that all of them are good.

  H. L. Mencken

  Religion, Fifty, May

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• When I hear a man applauded by the mob I always feel a pang of pity for him. All he has to do to be hissed is to live long enough.

  H. L. Mencken

  Humility, Men, Long

  H.L. Mencken (2013). “Minority Report”, p.352, Knopf

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• Complete masculinity and stupidity are often indistinguishable.

  H. L. Mencken

  Stupidity, Masculinity

  H. L. Mencken (2015). “In Defense of Women: Human Sexuality”, p.8, 谷月社

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• No man could bring himself to reveal his true character, and, above all, his true limitations as a citizen and a Christian, his true meannesses, his true imbecilities, to his friends, or even to his wife. Honest autobiography is therefore a contradiction in terms: the moment a man considers himself, even in petto, he tries to gild and fresco himself. Thus a man's wife, however realistic her view of him, always flatters him in the end, for the worst she sees in him is appreciably better, by the time she sees it, than what is actually there.

  H. L. Mencken

  Christian, Character, Men

  H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.325, Vintage

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• The curse of man, and the cause of nearly all his woe, is his stupendous capacity for believing the incredible.

  H. L. Mencken

  Believe, Men, Woe

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