H. L. Mencken Quotes And Sayings

It Is Impossible To Imagine The Universe Run By A Wise, Just And Omnipotent God, But It Is Quite Easy To Imagine It Run By A Board Of Gods.

Nevertheless, It Is Even Harder For The Average Ape To Believe That He Has Descended From Man.

The Only Cure For Contempt Is Counter-contempt.

In The Duel Of Sex Woman Fights From A Dreadnought And Man From An Open Raft.

Man Is A Beautiful Machine That Works Very Badly.

It Is Even Harder For The Average Ape To Believe That He Has Descended From Man.

Time Stays, We Go.

Platitude: An Idea (A) That Is Admitted To Be True By Everyone, And (B) That Is Not True.

Love Is The Triumph Of Imagination Over Intelligence.

A Professor Must Have A Theory As A Dog Must Have Fleas.

The Older I Grow The More I Distrust The Familiar Doctrine That Age Brings Wisdom.

A National Political Campaign Is Better Than The Best Circus Ever Heard Of, With A Mass Baptism And A Couple Of Hangings Thrown In.

The Urge To Save Humanity Is Almost Always A False Front For The Urge To Rule.

For Every Complex Problem There Is An Answer That Is Clear, Simple, And Wrong.

Conscience Is A Mother-in-law Whose Visit Never Ends.

The Worst Government Is Often The Most Moral. One Composed Of Cynics Is Often Very Tolerant And Humane. But When Fanatics Are On Top There Is No Limit To Oppression.

Women Always Excel Men In That Sort Of Wisdom Which Comes From Experience. To Be A Woman Is In Itself A Terrible Experience.

Immorality: The Morality Of Those Who Are Having A Better Time.

Before A Man Speaks It Is Always Safe To Assume That He Is A Fool. After He Speaks, It Is Seldom Necessary To Assume It.

A Cynic Is A Man Who, When He Smells Flowers, Looks Around For A Coffin.

It Is Hard To Believe That A Man Is Telling The Truth When You Know That You Would Lie If You Were In His Place.

Communism, Like Any Other Revealed Religion, Is Largely Made Up Of Prophecies.

A Newspaper Is A Device For Making The Ignorant More Ignorant And The Crazy Crazier.

Democracy Is The Art And Science Of Running The Circus From The Monkey Cage.

The Whole Aim Of Practical Politics Is To Keep The Populace Alarmed (And Hence Clamorous To Be Led To Safety) By Menacing It With An Endless Series Of Hobgoblins, All Of Them Imaginary.

Strike An Average Between What A Woman Thinks Of Her Husband A Month Before She Marries Him And What She Thinks Of Him A Year Afterward, And You Will Have The Truth About Him.

A Man May Be A Fool And Not Know It, But Not If He Is Married.

No Married Man Is Genuinely Happy If He Has To Drink Worse Whisky Than He Used To Drink When He Was Single.

We Are Here And It Is Now. Further Than That, All Human Knowledge Is Moonshine.

Every Normal Man Must Be Tempted, At Times, To Spit On His Hands, Hoist The Black Flag, And Begin Slitting Throats.

An Idealist Is One Who, On Noticing That Roses Smell Better Than A Cabbage, Concludes That It Will Also Make Better Soup.

Faith May Be Defined Briefly As An Illogical Belief In The Occurrence Of The Improbable.

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.

No One In This World, So Far As I Know - And I Have Searched The Records For Years, And Employed Agents To Help Me - Has Ever Lost Money By Underestimating The Intelligence Of The Great Masses Of The Plain People.

If A Politician Found He Had Cannibals Among His Constituents, He Would Promise Them Missionaries For Dinner.

Democracy Is A Pathetic Belief In The Collective Wisdom Of Individual Ignorance.

A Judge Is A Law Student Who Marks His Own Examination Papers.

All Men Are Frauds. The Only Difference Between Them Is That Some Admit It. I Myself Deny It.

Nine Times Out Of Ten, In The Arts As In Life, There Is Actually No Truth To Be Discovered; There Is Only Error To Be Exposed.

It Is Impossible To Imagine Goethe Or Beethoven Being Good At Billiards Or Golf.

Every Decent Man Is Ashamed Of The Government He Lives Under.

Love Is Like War: Easy To Begin But Very Hard To Stop.

There Is Always An Easy Solution To Every Problem - Neat, Plausible, And Wrong.

To Be In Love Is Merely To Be In A State Of Perceptual Anesthesia - To Mistake An Ordinary Young Woman For A Goddess.

The Common Argument That Crime Is Caused By Poverty Is A Kind Of Slander On The Poor.

A Church Is A Place In Which Gentlemen Who Have Never Been To Heaven Brag About It To Persons Who Will Never Get There.

In This World Of Sin And Sorrow There Is Always Something To Be Thankful For; As For Me, I Rejoice That I Am Not A Republican.

Honor Is Simply The Morality Of Superior Men.

It Is Hard For The Ape To Believe He Descended From Man.

For It Is Mutual Trust, Even More Than Mutual Interest That Holds Human Associations Together. Our Friends Seldom Profit Us But They Make Us Feel Safe. Marriage Is A Scheme To Accomplish Exactly That Same End.