H. L. Mencken Quotes - Page 7

• 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

  14 Copy quote

• 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

  5 Copy quote

• 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

  13 Copy quote

• 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".

  15 Copy quote

• 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

  30 Copy quote

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

  H. L. Mencken

  Men, Literature, Married

  10 Copy quote

• 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

  10 Copy quote

• 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

  18 Copy quote

• 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

  15 Copy quote

• 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

  19 Copy quote

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

  H. L. Mencken

  Religion, Atheism, Might

  13 Copy quote

• The only time you have a free press is when you own one.

  H. L. Mencken

  Free Press, Presses, Only Time

  7 Copy quote

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

  H. L. Mencken

  Freedom, Comedian, Democracy

  12 Copy quote

• 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

  12 Copy quote

• 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.

  28 Copy quote

• God must love the rich or he wouldn't divide so much among so few of them.

  H. L. Mencken

  Wealth, Rich, Divides

  8 Copy quote

• There is something even more valuable to civilization than wisdom, and that is character.

  H. L. Mencken

  Character, Civilization, Religion

  10 Copy quote

• 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

  23 Copy quote

• Whenever A annoys or injures B on the pretense of saving or improving X, A is a scoundrel.

  H. L. Mencken

  Saving, Annoying, Scoundrels

  Newspaper Days: 1899 - 1906 ch. 2 (1941)

  5 Copy quote

• Injustice is relatively easy to bear; what stings is justice.

  H. L. Mencken

  Freedom, Justice, Bears

  "Prejudices: Third Series".

  9 Copy quote

• Congress consists of one-third, more or less, scoundrels; two-thirds, more or less, idiots; and three-thirds, more or less, poltroons.

  H. L. Mencken

  Two, Three, Idiot

  H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.622, Vintage

  7 Copy quote

• 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

  17 Copy quote

• I've made it a rule never to drink by daylight and never to refuse a drink after dark.

  H. L. Mencken

  Food, Drinking, Dark

  New York Post 18 Sept. 1945

  8 Copy quote

• Giving every man a vote has no more made men wise and free than Christianity has made them good.

  H. L. Mencken

  Wise, Freedom, Men

  12 Copy quote

• God is a Republican, and Santa Claus is a Democrat.

  H. L. Mencken

  Funny, Humorous, Party

  9 Copy quote

You May Also Like:

George Jean Nathan

Friedrich Nietzsche

Mark Twain

Clarence Darrow

Sinclair Lewis

Ambrose Bierce

John T. Scopes

Will Rogers