H. L. Mencken Quotes - Page 33

• The Christian always swears a bloody oath that he will never do it again. The civilized man simply resolves to be a bit more careful next time.

  H. L. Mencken

  Christian, Men, Promise

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• Morality is nothing but a struggle for safety

  H. L. Mencken

  Struggle, Safety, Morality

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• To the best of my knowledge and belief, the average American newspaper, even of the so-called better sort, is not only quite as bad as Upton Sinclair says it is, but 10 times worse

  H. L. Mencken

  Media, Average, Belief

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• I roll out of my couch every morning with the more agreeable expectations.

  H. L. Mencken

  Morning, Expectations, Couches

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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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• 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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• 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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• 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 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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• 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 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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• It is impossible to think of a man of any actual force and originality, universally recognized as having those qualities, who spent his whole life appraising and describing the work of other men.

  H. L. Mencken

  Men, Thinking, Quality

  H. L. Mencken (2009). “Prejudices: Third Series”, p.87, Cosimo, Inc.

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

  H. L. Mencken

  Self, Essence, Culture

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