H. L. Mencken Quotes - Page 35

• As long as you represent me as praising alcohol I shall not complain.

  H. L. Mencken

  Long, Alcohol, Complaining

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• The way to deal with superstition is not to be polite to it, but to tackle it with all arms, and so rout it, cripple it, and make it forever infamous and ridiculous.

  H. L. Mencken

  Forever, Superstitions, Way

  "Aftermath". "The Baltimore Sun" Newspaper, September 14, 1925.

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• As if paralyzed by the national fear of ideas, the democratic distrust of whatever strikes beneath the prevailing platitudes, it evades all resolute and honest dealing with what, after all, must be every healthy literature's elementary materials.

  H. L. Mencken

  Ideas, Healthy, Literature

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

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• What are the characters that I discern most clearly in the so-called Anglo-Saxon type of man? I may answer at once that two stickout above all others. One is his curious and apparently incurable incompetence--his congenital inability to do any difficult thing easily and well, whether it be isolating a bacillus or writing a sonata. The other is his astounding susceptibility to fears and alarms--in short, his hereditary cowardice.... There is no record in history of any Anglo-Saxon nation entering upon any great war without allies.

  H. L. Mencken

  War, Writing, Character

  H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.173, Vintage

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• [T]here is only one sound argument for democracy, and that is the argument that it is a crime for any man to hold himself out as better than other men, and, above all, a most heinous offense for him to prove it.

  H. L. Mencken

  Men, Democracy, Sound

  H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.163, Vintage

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• Creator: A comedian whose audience is afraid to laugh.

  H. L. Mencken

  Freedom, Laughing, Comedian

  "A Mencken Chrestomathy". Book by H. L. Mencken, ch. 30, 1949.

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• Women have simple tastes. They get pleasure out of the conversation of children in arms and men in love.

  H. L. Mencken

  Love, Children, Men

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

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• There is, in fact, no reason to believe that any given natural phenomenon, however marvelous it may seem today, will remain forever inexplicable. Soon or late the laws governing the production of life itself will be discovered in the laboratory, and man may set up business as a creator on his own account. The thing, indeed, is not only conceivable; it is even highly probable.

  H. L. Mencken

  Believe, Health, Men

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• After all, why be good? How many will actually believe it of us?

  H. L. Mencken

  Believe, Belief, Be Good

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• What chiefly distinguishes the daily press is its incurable fear of ideas, its constant effort to evade the discussion of fundamentals by translating all issues into a few elemental fears, its incessant reduction of all reflection to mere emotion.

  H. L. Mencken

  Fear, Reflection, Issues

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

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• The best client is a scared millionaire.

  H. L. Mencken

  Clients, Scared, Millionaire

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• To sum up: 1. The cosmos is a gigantic fly-wheel making 10,000 revolutions a minute. 2. Man is a sick fly taking a dizzy ride on it. 3. Religion is the theory that the wheel was designed and set spinning to give him the ride.

  H. L. Mencken

  Religious, Men, Giving

  Smart Set, Dec. 1920

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• It seems to me that a great university ought to have room in it for men subscribing to every sort of idea that is currently prevalent

  H. L. Mencken

  Men, Ideas, Rooms

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• Of all forms of visible otherworldliness, it seems to me, the Gothic is at once the most logical and the most beautiful. It reaches up magnificently-and a good half of it is palpably useless.

  H. L. Mencken

  Beautiful, Half, Useless

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• Man is a beautiful machine that works very badly. He is like a watch of which the most that can be said is that its cosmetic effect is good.

  H. L. Mencken

  Beautiful, Science, Technology

  H.L. Mencken (2013). “Minority Report”, p.26, Knopf

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• What the meaning of human life may be I don't know: I incline to suspect that it has none.

  H. L. Mencken

  May, Human Life, Humans

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• The capacity of human beings to bore one another seems to be vastly greater than that of any other animal.

  H. L. Mencken

  Book, Reading, Animal

  Notebooks (1956) "Minority Report"

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• Science, at bottom, is really anti-intellectual. It always distrusts pure reason, and demands the production of objective fact.

  H. L. Mencken

  Science, Intellectual, Demand

  'Minority Report'. Collected in Notebooks (1956).

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• The notion that artists flourish upon adversity and misunderstanding, that they are able to function to the utmost in an atmosphere of indifference or hostility - this notion is nine-tenths nonsense.

  H. L. Mencken

  Adversity, Artist, Atmosphere

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

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• Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public.

  H. L. Mencken

  Funny, Witty, Laughter

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• The real man lies in the depths of subconscious.

  H. L. Mencken

  Real, Lying, Men

  H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.453, Vintage

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• If women believed in their husbands they would be a good deal happier and also a good deal more foolish.

  H. L. Mencken

  Trust, Husband, Stupid

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• Writing does for me what giving milk does for a cow.

  H. L. Mencken

  Writing, Giving, Doe

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• Democracy must be a sound scheme at bottom, else it would not survive such cruel strains.

  H. L. Mencken

  Democracy, Sound, Schemes

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• I hate sports the way people who like sports hate common sense.

  H. L. Mencken

  Sports, Hate, People

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