H. L. Mencken Quotes - Page 37

• Thanksgiving Day is a day devoted by persons with inflammatory rheumatism to thanking a loving Father that it is not hydrophobia.

  H. L. Mencken

  Father, Dignity, Thanksgiving Day

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• War is the only sport which is genuinely amusing. And it is the only sport which has any intelligible use.

  H. L. Mencken

  Sports, Peace, War

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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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• The aim of poetry, it appears, is to fill the mind with lofty thoughts--not to give it joy, but to give it a grand and somewhat gaudy sense of virtue. The essay is a weapon against the degenerate tendencies of the age. The novel, properly conceived, is a means of uplifting the spirit; its aim is to inspire, not merely to satisfy the low curiosity of man in man.

  H. L. Mencken

  Uplifting, Mean, Men

  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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• Historian: an unsuccessful novelist.

  H. L. Mencken

  History, Historical, Novelists

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

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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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• 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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• Lawyer: one who protects us against robbery by taking away the temptation.

  H. L. Mencken

  Funny, Freedom, Temptation

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• The most disgusting cad in the world is the man who on the grounds of decorum and morality avoids the game of love. He is one who puts his own ease and security above the most laudable of philanthropies.

  H. L. Mencken

  Men, Games, Ease

  H.L. Mencken (1920). “Prejudices Second Series”

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• If there were only three women left in the world, two of them would immediately convene a court-martial to try the other one.

  H. L. Mencken

  Two, Trying, Three

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

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• He slept more than any other president, whether by day or by night. Nero fiddled, but Coolidge only snored.

  H. L. Mencken

  Night, Political, President

  'American Mercury' April 1933

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• We must think of human progress, not as of something going on in the race in general, but as something going on in a small minority, perpetually beleaguered in a few walled towns. Now and then the horde of barbarians outside breaks through, and we have an armed effort to halt the process. That is, we have a Reformation, a French Revolution, a war for democracy, a Great Awakening. The minority is decimated and driven to cover. But a few survive- and a few are enough to carry on.

  H. L. Mencken

  War, Thinking, Break Through

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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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• The common man knows exactly what he wants...and deserves to get it good and hard.

  H. L. Mencken

  Men, Want, Common

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• The more I think you over, the more it comes home to me what an unmitigated Middle Victorian ass you are!

  H. L. Mencken

  Home, Thinking, History

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• The net effect of Clarence Darrow's great speech yesterday seemed to be precisely the same as if he had bawled it up a rainspout in the interior of Afghanistan.

  H. L. Mencken

  Yesterday, Speech, Politics

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• The first Rotarian was the first man to call John the Baptist Jack.

  H. L. Mencken

  Men, Modern Life, Baptists

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• Of learned men, the clergy show the lowest development of professional ethics. Any pastor is free to cadge customers from the divines of rival sects, and to denounce the divines themselves as theological quacks.

  H. L. Mencken

  Men, Atheism, Rivals

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• I'm thoroughly convinced that editors don't help authors.

  H. L. Mencken

  Editors, Helping, Convinced

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• After all, the world is not our handiwork, and we are not responsible for what goes on in it, save within very narrow limits.

  H. L. Mencken

  Responsibility, Goes On, World

  H. L. Mencken (2009). “Prejudices: Third Series”, p.221, Cosimo, Inc.

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• Some boys go to college and eventually succeed in getting out. Others go to college and never succeed in getting out. The latter are called professors.

  H. L. Mencken

  Boys, College, Succeed

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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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• 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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• The intellectual heritage of the race belongs to the minority.

  H. L. Mencken

  Race, Intellectual, Minorities

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