H. L. Mencken Quotes - Page 9

• Kant was probably the worst writer ever heard of on earth before Karl Marx. Some of his ideas were really quite simple, but he always managed to make them seem unintelligible. I hope he is in Hell.

  H. L. Mencken

  Simple, Ideas, Earth

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• The believing mind is externally impervious to evidence. The most that can be accomplished with it is to induce it to substitute one delusion for another. It rejects all overt evidence as wicked.

  H. L. Mencken

  Believe, Mind, Wicked

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• The cure for the evils of democracy is more democracy.

  H. L. Mencken

  Freedom, Democracies Have, Evil

  H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.154, Vintage

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• Looking for an honest politician is like looking for an ethical burglar.

  H. L. Mencken

  Political, Honest, Politician

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• If all the lawyers were hanged tomorrow, and their bones were sold to a mah jong factory, we'd all be freer and safer, and our taxes would be reduced by almost a half.

  H. L. Mencken

  Half, Would Be, Tomorrow

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• Self-respect - The secure feeling that no one, as yet, is suspicious.

  H. L. Mencken

  Respect, Self, Personality

  "A Mencken Chrestomathy: His Own Selection of His Choicest Writing". Book edited by H. L. Mencken, 1949.

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• Let no one mistake it for comedy, farcical though it may be in all its details. It serves notice on the country that Neanderthal man is organizing in these forlorn backwaters of the land, led by a fanatic, rid of sense and devoid of conscience.

  H. L. Mencken

  Country, Mistake, Science

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• Religion is a conceited effort to deny the most obvious realities.

  H. L. Mencken

  Conceited, Reality, Effort

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• I believe in only one thing: liberty; but I do not believe in liberty enough to want to force it upon anyone.

  H. L. Mencken

  Peace, Freedom, War

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• One horse-laugh is worth ten-thousand syllogisms.

  H. L. Mencken

  Horse, Laughing, Thousand

  H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.17, Vintage

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• The typical lawmaker of today is a man wholly devoid of principle - a mere counter in a grotesque and knavish game. If the right pressure could be applied to him, he would be cheerfully in favor of polygamy, astrology or cannibalism.

  H. L. Mencken

  Men, Astrology, Games

  H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.261, Vintage

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• Suppose two-thirds of the members of the national House of Representatives were dumped into the Washington garbage incinerator tomorrow, what would we lose to offset our gain of their salaries and the salaries of their parasites?

  H. L. Mencken

  Two, House, Salary

  H.L. MENCKEN (1958). “PREJUDICES A SELECTION”

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• There is, in fact, nothing about religious opinions that entitles them to any more respect than other opinions get. On the contrary, they tend to be noticeably silly.

  H. L. Mencken

  Religious, Silly, Others Opinions

  H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.80, Vintage

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• We are here and it is now. Further than that, all human knowledge is moonshine.

  H. L. Mencken

  Inspirational, Drinking, Knowledge

  "A Mencken chrestomathy". Book by Henry Louis Mencken, 1949.

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• It is the theory of all modern civilized governments that they protect and foster the liberty of the citizen; it is the practice of all of them to limit its exercise, and sometimes very narrowly.

  H. L. Mencken

  Exercise, Government, Practice

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• Socialism: nothing more than the theory that the slave is always more virtuous than his master.

  H. L. Mencken

  Socialism, Slave, Theory

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• I believe that it should be perfectly lawful to print even things that outrage the pruderies and prejudices of the general, so long as any honest minority, however small, wants to read them. The remedy of the majority is not prohibition, but avoidance.

  H. L. Mencken

  Believe, Long, Majority

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• It is impossible to imagine Goethe or Beethoven being good at billiards or golf.

  H. L. Mencken

  Sports, Golf, Gambling

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• When a private citizen is robbed, a worthy man is deprived of the fruits of his industry and thrift; when the government is robbed, the worst that happens is that certain rogues and loafers have less money to play with than they had before.

  H. L. Mencken

  Men, Play, Citizens

  H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.147, Vintage

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• A man loses his sense of direction after four drinks; a woman loses hers after four kisses.

  H. L. Mencken

  Love, Funny Valentines Day, Women

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• The truth is that Christian theology, like every other theology, is not only opposed to the scientific spirit; it is also opposed to all other attempts at rational thinking.

  H. L. Mencken

  Christian, Thinking, Spirit

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• Off goes the head of the king, and tyranny gives way to freedom. The change seems abysmal. Then, bit by bit, the face of freedom hardens, and by and by it is the old face of tyranny. Then another cycle, and another. But under the play of all these opposites there is something fundamental and permanent - the basic delusion that men may be governed and yet be free.

  H. L. Mencken

  Change, Kings, Men

  Preface to the first edition of "The American Credo: A Contribution Toward the Interpretation of the National Mind", book by George Jean Nathan and H. L. Mencken, 1920.

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• All men are frauds. The only difference between them is that some admit it. I myself deny it.

  H. L. Mencken

  Funny, Men, Differences

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• Conscience is the inner voice that warns us that someone might be looking.

  H. L. Mencken

  Funny, Life, Freedom

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• Man is always looking for someone to boast to; woman is always looking for a shoulder to put her head on.

  H. L. Mencken

  Men, Literature, Shoulders

  H. L. Mencken (2015). “In Defense of Women: Human Sexuality”, p.65, 谷月社

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