H. L. Mencken Quotes - Page 7

• Men become civilized, not in proportion to their willingness to believe, but in their readiness to doubt.

  H. L. Mencken

  Believe, Men, Thinking

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• Perhaps the most revolting character that the United States ever produced was the Christian Businessman.

  H. L. Mencken

  Christian, Character, United States

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• Bachelors know more about women than married men; if they didn't they'd be married too.

  H. L. Mencken

  Funny, Anniversary, Marriage

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

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• Of all the classes of men, I dislike the most those who make their livings by talking - actors, clergymen, politicians, pedagogues, and so on. .... It is almost impossible to imagine a talker who sticks to the facts. Carried away by the sound of his own voice and the applause from the groundlings, he makes inevitably the jump from logic to mere rhetoric.

  H. L. Mencken

  Men, Talking, Class

  H.L. Mencken (2013). “Minority Report”, p.174, Knopf

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• Voting is simply a way of determining which side is the stronger without putting it to the test of fighting.

  H. L. Mencken

  Fighting, Voting, Stronger

  H.L. Mencken (2013). “Minority Report”, p.312, Knopf

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• Economic independence is the foundation of the only sort of freedom worth a damn

  H. L. Mencken

  Independence, Foundation, Economic

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• Religion is fundamentally opposed to everything I hold in veneration - courage, clear thinking, honesty, fairness, and, above all, love of the truth.

  H. L. Mencken

  Atheist, Honesty, Thinking

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• Democracy turns upon and devours itself. Universal suffrage, in theory the palladium of our liberties, becomes the assurance of our slavery. And that slavery will grow more and more abject and ignoble as the differential birth rate, the deliberate encouragement of mendicancy and the failure of popular education produce a larger and larger mass of prehensile half-wits, and so make the demagogues more and more secure.

  H. L. Mencken

  Encouragement, Birth Rate, Democracy

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• There is no record in the history of a nation that ever gained anything valuable by being unable to defend itself.

  H. L. Mencken

  Military, Records, Valuable

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• Government is actually the worst failure of civilized man. There has never been a really good one, and even those that are most tolerable are arbitrary, cruel, grasping and unintelligent.

  H. L. Mencken

  Men, Liberty, Arbitrary

  "Minority Report".

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• The truth that survives is simply the lie that is pleasantest to believe.

  H. L. Mencken

  Truth, Lying, Believe

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• Always remember this: If you don't attend the funerals of your friends, they will certainly not attend yours.

  H. L. Mencken

  Funeral, Age, Remember

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• The great masses of men, though theoretically free, are seen to submit supinely to oppression and exploitation of a hundred abhorrent sorts. Have they no means of resistance? Obviously they have. The worst tyrant, even under democratic plutocracy, has but one throat to slit. The moment the majority decided to overthrow him he would be overthrown. But the majority lacks the resolution; it cannot imagine taking the risks.

  H. L. Mencken

  Mean, Men, Tyrants

  H.L. Mencken (2013). “Notes On Democracy”, p.41, Knopf

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• Communism, like any other revealed religion, is largely made up of prophecies.

  H. L. Mencken

  Religion, Communism, Made

  H.L. Mencken (2013). “Minority Report”, p.277, Knopf

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• All government, in its essence, is a conspiracy against the superior man: it's one permanent object is to oppress him and cripple him... One of its primary functions is to regiment men by force, to make them as much alike as possible and as dependent upon one another as possible, to search out and combat originality among them.

  H. L. Mencken

  Men, Essence, Originality

  "Prejudices: Third Series (Le Contrat Social)". Book by H. L. Mencken, 1922.

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• The only really happy folk are married women and single men.

  H. L. Mencken

  Men, Literature, Married

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• The theory seems to be that as long as a man is a failure he is one of God's children, but that as soon as he succeeds he is taken over by the Devil.

  H. L. Mencken

  Children, Failure, Taken

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• Imagine the Creator as a low comedian, and at once the world becomes explicable.

  H. L. Mencken

  Freedom, Comedian, Democracy

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• There is always a well-known solution to every human problem - neat, plausible, and wrong.

  H. L. Mencken

  Funny Inspirational, Freedom, Business

  "The Divine Afflatus". New York Evening Mail, November 16, 1917; reprinted in H. L. Mencken "Prejudices: Second Series", 1920, and in "A Mencken Chrestomathy: His Own Selection of His Choicest Writing" edited by H. L. Mencken, 1949.

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• The time must come inevitably when mankind shall surmount the imbecility of religion, as it has surmounted the imbecility of religion's ally, magic. It is impossible to imagine this world being really civilized so long as so much nonsense survives. In even its highest forms religion embraces concepts that run counter to all common sense. It can be defended only by making assumptions and adopting rules of logic that are never heard of in any other field of human thinking.

  H. L. Mencken

  Running, Thinking, Long

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• A Puritan is someone who is desperately afraid that, somewhere, someone might be having a good time.

  H. L. Mencken

  Religion, Atheism, Might

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• He marries best who puts it off until it is too late.

  H. L. Mencken

  Marriage, Too Late, Late

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

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• Moral certainty is always a sign of cultural inferiority. The more uncivilized the man, the surer he is that he knows precisely what is right and what is wrong.

  H. L. Mencken

  Men, Inferiority, Moral

  H.L. Mencken (2013). “Minority Report”, p.416, Knopf

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• But I wonder where we will land if trial judges begin deciding that the fact that a man has committed an atrocious crime is proof sufficient that he is not responsible for his acts.

  H. L. Mencken

  Men, Land, Judging

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• Whenever you hear a man speak of his love for his country, it is a sign that he expects to be paid for it.

  H. L. Mencken

  Love, Country, Patriotic

  H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.616, Vintage

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