H. L. Mencken Quotes

The basic fact about human existence is not that it is a tragedy, but that it is a bore. It is not so much a war as an endless standing in line... view

By: H. L. Mencken

The capacity of human beings to bore one another seems to be vastly greater than that of any other animal... view

By: H. L. Mencken

The chief contribution of Protestantism to human thought is its massive proof that God is a bore... view

By: H. L. Mencken

The chief value of money lies in the fact that one lives in a world in which it is overestimated... view

By: H. L. Mencken

The common argument that crime is caused by poverty is a kind of slander on the poor... view

By: H. L. Mencken

The cynics are right nine times out of ten... view

By: H. L. Mencken

The difference between a moral man and a man of honor is that the latter regrets a discreditable act, even when it has worked and he has not been caught... view

By: H. L. Mencken

The most costly of all follies is to believe passionately in the palpably not true. It is the chief occupation of mankind... view

By: H. L. Mencken

Temptation is an irresistible force at work on a movable body... view

By: H. L. Mencken

The older I grow the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom... view

By: H. L. Mencken

Say what you will about the ten commandments, you must always come back to the pleasant fact that there are only ten of them... view

By: H. L. Mencken

The one permanent emotion of the inferior man is fear - fear of the unknown, the complex, the inexplicable. What he wants above everything else is safety... view

By: H. L. Mencken

The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out... without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, intolerable... view

By: H. L. Mencken

Temptation is a woman's weapon and man's excuse... view

By: H. L. Mencken

The only cure for contempt is counter-contempt... view

By: H. L. Mencken

Self-respect: the secure feeling that no one, as yet, is suspicious... view

By: H. L. Mencken

The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule... view

By: H. L. Mencken

Puritanism. The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy... view

By: H. L. Mencken

Poetry has done enough when it charms, but prose must also convince... view

By: H. L. Mencken

Platitude: an idea (a) that is admitted to be true by everyone, and (b) that is not true... view

By: H. L. Mencken

Opera in English is, in the main, just about as sensible as baseball in Italian... view

By: H. L. Mencken

One may no more live in the world without picking up the moral prejudices of the world than one will be able to go to hell without perspiring... view

By: H. L. Mencken

Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public... view

By: H. L. Mencken

No one in this world has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby... view

By: H. L. Mencken

No matter how long he lives, no man ever becomes as wise as the average woman of forty-eight... view

By: H. L. Mencken

No matter how happily a woman may be married, it always pleases her to discover that there is a nice man who wishes that she were not... view

By: H. L. Mencken

No married man is genuinely happy if he has to drink worse whisky than he used to drink when he was single... view

By: H. L. Mencken

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... view

By: H. L. Mencken

War will never cease until babies begin to come into the world with larger cerebrums and smaller adrenal glands... view

By: H. L. Mencken

An idealist is one who, on noticing that roses smell better than a cabbage, concludes that it will also make better soup... view

By: H. L. Mencken

No man ever quite believes in any other man. One may believe in an idea absolutely, but not in a man... view

By: H. L. Mencken

Women have simple tastes. They get pleasure out of the conversation of children in arms and men in love... view

By: H. L. Mencken

Women always excel men in that sort of wisdom which comes from experience. To be a woman is in itself a terrible experience... view

By: H. L. Mencken

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

By: H. L. Mencken

Whenever a husband and wife begin to discuss their marriage they are giving evidence at a coroner's inquest... view

By: H. L. Mencken

When women kiss it always reminds one of prize fighters shaking hands... view

By: H. L. Mencken

When a new source of taxation is found it never means, in practice, that the old source is abandoned. It merely means that the politicians have two ways of milking the taxpayer where they had one before... view

By: H. L. Mencken

What men value in this world is not rights but privileges... view

By: H. L. Mencken

Wealth - any income that is at least one hundred dollars more a year than the income of one's wife's sister's husband... view

By: H. L. Mencken

We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart... view

By: H. L. Mencken

The penalty for laughing in a courtroom is six months in jail.. view

By: H. L. Mencken

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

By: H. L. Mencken