H.L. Mencken Quotes

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To denounce moralizing out of hand is to pronounce a moral judgment.
H.L. Mencken Quotes: To denounce moralizing out of
The believing mind reaches its perihelion in the so-called Liberals. They believe in each and every quack who sets up his booth inthe fairgrounds, including the Communists. The Communists have some talents too, but they always fall short of believing in the Liberals.
H.L. Mencken Quotes: The believing mind reaches its
The aim of New Deals is to exterminate the class of creditors and thrust all men into that of debtors. It is like trying to breedcattle with all cows and no bulls.
H.L. Mencken Quotes: The aim of New Deals
The cynics are right nine times out of ten.
H.L. Mencken Quotes: The cynics are right nine
The most popular man under a democracy is not the most democratic man, but the most despotic man. The common folk delight in the exactions of such a man. They like him to boss them. Their natural gait is the goose step.
H.L. Mencken Quotes: The most popular man under
[Government] is apprehended, not as a committee of citizens chosen to carry on the communal business of the whole population, but as a separate and autonomous corporation, mainly devoted to exploiting the population for the benefit of its own members.
H.L. Mencken Quotes: [Government] is apprehended, not as
The late William Jennings Bryan, L.L.D., always had one great advantage in controversy; he was never burdened with an understanding of his opponent's case.
H.L. Mencken Quotes: The late William Jennings Bryan,
You never push a noun against a verb without trying to blow up something.
H.L. Mencken Quotes: You never push a noun
The motive of fear is the be-all and end-all of religion.
H.L. Mencken Quotes: The motive of fear is
Conscience is a mother-in-law whose visit never ends.
H.L. Mencken Quotes: Conscience is a mother-in-law whose
Ask the average American what is the salient passion in his emotional armamentarium - what is the idea that lies at the bottom of all his other ideas - and it is very probable that, nine times out of ten, he will nominate his hot and unquenchable rage for liberty. He regards himself, indeed, as the chief exponent of liberty in the whole world, and all its other advocates as no more than his followers, half timorous and half envious. To question his ardour is to insult him as grievously as if one questioned the honour of the republic or the chastity of his wife. And yet it must be plain to any dispassionate observer that this ardour, in the course of a century and a half, has lost a large part of its old burning reality and descended to the estate of a mere phosphorescent superstition.
H.L. Mencken Quotes: Ask the average American what
The prophesying business is like writing fugues; it is fatal to every one save the man of absolute genius.
H.L. Mencken Quotes: The prophesying business is like
Every great wave of popular passion that rolls up on the prairies is dashed to spray when it strikes the hard rocks of Manhattan.
H.L. Mencken Quotes: Every great wave of popular
Don't overestimate the decency of the human race.
H.L. Mencken Quotes: Don't overestimate the decency of
The whole drift of our law is toward the absolute prohibition of all ideas that diverge in the slightest form from the accepted platitudes, and behind that drift of law there is a far more potent force of growing custom, and under that custom there is a natural philosophy which erects conformity into the noblest of virtues and the free functioning of personality into a capital crime against society.
H.L. Mencken Quotes: The whole drift of our
When difficulties confront him he no longer blames them upon the inscrutable enmity of remote and ineffable powers; he blames them upon his own ignorance and incompetence. And when he sets out to remedy that ignorance and to remove that incompetence he does not look to any such powers for light and leading; he puts his whole trust in his own enterprise and ingenuity. Not infrequently he overestimates his capacities and comes to grief, but his failures, at worst, are much fewer than the failures of his fathers. Does pestilence, on occasion, still baffle his medicine? Then it is surely less often than the pestilences of old baffled sacrifice and prayer. Does war remain to shame him before the bees, and wasteful and witless government to make him blush when he contemplates the ants? Then war at its most furious is still less cruel than Hell, and the harshest statutes ever devised by man have more equity and benevolence in them than the irrational and appalling jurisprudence of the Christian God.

Today every such man knows that the laws which prevail in the universe, whatever their origin in some remote and incomprehensible First Purpose, manifest themselves in complete impersonality, and that no representation to any superhuman Power, however imagined, can change their operation in the slightest. He knows that when they seem arbitrary and irrational it is not because omnipotent and inscrutable Presences are playing with them, as a child might play with building blocks
H.L. Mencken Quotes: When difficulties confront him he
Why do men delight in work? Fundamentally, I suppose, because there is a sense of relief and pleasure in getting something done - a kind of satisfaction not unlike that which a hen enjoys on laying an egg.
H.L. Mencken Quotes: Why do men delight in
The martini: the only American invention as perfect as the sonnet.
H.L. Mencken Quotes: The martini: the only American
It is common to assume that human progress affects everyone - that even the dullest man, in these bright days, knows more than any man of, say, the Eighteenth Century, and is far more civilized. This assumption is quite erroneous ... The great masses of men, even in this inspired republic, are precisely where the mob was at the dawn of history. They are ignorant, they are dishonest, they are cowardly, they are ignoble. They know little if anything that is worth knowing, and there is not the slightest sign of a natural desire among them to increase their knowledge.
H.L. Mencken Quotes: It is common to assume
If x is the population of the United States and y is the degree of imbecility of the average American, then democracy is the theory that x times y is less than y
H.L. Mencken Quotes: If x is the population
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 Quotes: If all the lawyers were
A man always blames the woman who fools him. In the same way he blames the door he walks into in the dark.
H.L. Mencken Quotes: A man always blames the
All men are frauds. The only difference between them is that some admit it. I myself deny it.
H.L. Mencken Quotes: All men are frauds. The
Democracy the domination of unreflective and timorous men, moved in vast herds by mob conditions.
H.L. Mencken Quotes: Democracy the domination of unreflective
I believe in the complete freedom of thought and speech - alike for the humblest man and the mightiest, and in the utmost freedom of conduct that is consistent with living in organized
society.
H.L. Mencken Quotes: I believe in the complete
Poetry has done enough when it charms, but prose must also convince.
H.L. Mencken Quotes: Poetry has done enough when
The double standard of morality will survive in this world so long as the woman whose husband has been lured away is favoured with the sympathetic tears of other women, and a man whose wife has made off is laughed at by other men.
H.L. Mencken Quotes: The double standard of morality
America's biggest failure is its inability to take comedy seriously.
H.L. Mencken Quotes: America's biggest failure is its
The true bureaucrat is a man of really remarkable talents. He writes a kind of English that is unknown elsewhere in the world, and an almost infinite capacity for forming complicated and unworkable rules.
H.L. Mencken Quotes: The true bureaucrat is a
The military caste did not originate as a party of patriots, but as a party of bandits
H.L. Mencken Quotes: The military caste did not
The only way that a government can provide for jobs for all citizens is by deciding what every man should do.
H.L. Mencken Quotes: The only way that a
The legislature, like the executive, has ceased to be even the creature of the people: it is the creature of pressure groups, and most of them, it must be manifest, are of dubious wisdom and even more dubious honesty. Laws are no longer made by a rational process of public discussion; they are made by a process of blackmail and intimidation, and they are executed in the same manner. The typical lawmaker of today is a man wholly devoid of principle
H.L. Mencken Quotes: The legislature, like the executive,
All the great enterprises of the world are run by a few smart men: their aides and associates run down by rapid stages to the level of sheer morons. Everyone knows that this is true of government, but we often forget that it is equally true of private undertakings. In the average great bank, or railroad, or other corporation the burden of management lies upon a small group. The rest are ciphers.
H.L. Mencken Quotes: All the great enterprises of
Never drink before sunset; Never drink more than 3 days in a row.
H.L. Mencken Quotes: Never drink before sunset; Never
Why writers write I do not know. As well ask why a hen lays an egg or why a cow stands patiently while an underprivileged farmer burglarizes her.
H.L. Mencken Quotes: Why writers write I do
Creator: A comedian whose audience is afraid to laugh.
H.L. Mencken Quotes: Creator: A comedian whose audience
Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence.
H.L. Mencken Quotes: Love is the triumph of
There are some politicians who promise something for everyone. If their constituents were cannibals, would promise them missionaries for dinner, fattened at public expense.
H.L. Mencken Quotes: There are some politicians who
Love is the mistaken belief that one woman differs from another.
H.L. Mencken Quotes: Love is the mistaken belief
Believing passionately in the palpably not true ... is the chief occupation of mankind.
H.L. Mencken Quotes: Believing passionately in the palpably
A poet over 30 is pathetic
H.L. Mencken Quotes: A poet over 30 is
Every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods.
H.L. Mencken Quotes: Every election is a sort
It takes a long while for a naturally trustful person to reconcile himself to the idea that after all God will not help him
H.L. Mencken Quotes: It takes a long while
The effort to put down Christian Science by law is one of the craziest enterprises upon which medical men waste their energies. It is based upon a superstition even sillier than that behind Christian Science itself: to wit, the superstition that, when an evil shows itself, all that is needed to dispose of it is to pass a law against it.
H.L. Mencken Quotes: The effort to put down
To the best of my knowledge and belief, the average American newspaper, even of the so-called better sort, is not only quite as bad as Upton Sinclair says it is, but 10 times worse, 10 times as ignorant, 10 times as unfair and tyrannical, 10 times as complaisant and pusillanimous, and 10 times as devious, hypocritical, disingenuous, deceitful, pharisaical, Pecksniffian, fraudulent, slippery, unscrupulous, perfidious, lewd and dishonest.
H.L. Mencken Quotes: To the best of my
Nietzsche, to the end of his days, remained a Russian pastor's son, and hence two-thirds of a Puritan; he erected his war upon holiness, toward the end, into a sort of holy war.
H.L. Mencken Quotes: Nietzsche, to the end of
Equality before the law is probably forever unattainable. It is a noble ideal, but it can never be realized, for what men value in this world is not rights but privileges.
H.L. Mencken Quotes: Equality before the law is
Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.
H.L. Mencken Quotes: Puritanism: The haunting fear that
I am one of the few goyim who have ever actually tackled the Talmud. I suppose you now expect me to add that it is a profound and noble work, worthy of hard study by all other goyims. Unhappily, my report must differ from this expectation. It seems to me, save for a few bright spots, to be quite indistinguishable from rubbish.
H.L. Mencken Quotes: I am one of the
I think there is a limit beyond which free speech can't go….a limit that is very seldom mentioned. It's the point where free speech begins to collide with the right to privacy… I don't think there are any other conditions to free speech. I have the right to say and to believe anything I please, but I don't have the right to press it on anybody else. For example, take for instance the Catholic Church, which I am on good terms with, personally, but which I have no belief in whatsoever. I have a right to print my dissent from its doctrines, to utter them. I have exercised that right for many years. But I have no right to go on the cathedral steps on Sunday morning, when the Catholics are coming out from High Mass, and make a speech denouncing them. I don't think there is any such right. Nobody has got the right to be a nuisance to his neighbors, or to hurt his neighbor's feelings wantonly. If they come to him and say "What do you think of this Mass that we have just finished?", I think that he has the right to answer. But he has no right to press his opinions on them. Of course you'll notice the peculiar thing about the United States, where there is very little free speech. Free speech is a very limited right, in this country, as I have learned to my bitter experience, more than once. Yet, it is the country where the right to press opinions on reluctant hearers is carried to a development that is unheard of on earth. The whole country's full of propagandists who are bothering ev
H.L. Mencken Quotes: I think there is a
When somebody says it's not about the money, it's about the money.
H.L. Mencken Quotes: When somebody says it's not
How far the gentlemen of dark complexion will get with their independence, now that they have declared it, I don't know. There are serious difficulties in their way. The vast majority of people of their race are but two or three inches removed from gorillas: it will be a sheer impossibility, for a long, long while, to interest them in anything above pork-chops and bootleg gin.
H.L. Mencken Quotes: How far the gentlemen of
The American people, taking one with another, constitute the most timorous, snivelling, poltroonish, ignominious mob of serfs and goosesteppers ever gathered under one flag in Christendom since the end of the Middle Ages.
H.L. Mencken Quotes: The American people, taking one
To sum up: 1. The cosmos is a gigantic fly-wheel making 10,000 revolutions a minute. 2. Man is a sick fly taking a dizzy ride on it. 3. Religion is the theory that the wheel was designed and set spinning to give him the ride.
H.L. Mencken Quotes: To sum up: 1. The
A man full of faith is simply one who has lost the capacity for clear and realistic thought.
H.L. Mencken Quotes: A man full of faith
The wholly manly man lacks the wit necessary to give objective form to his soaring and secret dreams, and the wholly womanly woman is apt to be too cynical a creature to dream at all.
H.L. Mencken Quotes: The wholly manly man lacks
The intellectual heritage of the race belongs to the minority.
H.L. Mencken Quotes: The intellectual heritage of the
If there were only three women left in the world, two of them would immediately convene a court-martial to try the other one.
H.L. Mencken Quotes: If there were only three
It seems to me that a great university ought to have room in it for men subscribing to every sort of idea that is currently prevalent
H.L. Mencken Quotes: It seems to me that
People constantly speak of 'the government' doing this or that, as they might speak of God doing it. But the government is really nothing but a group of men, and usually they are very inferior men. They may have some better man working for them, but they themselves are seldom worthy of any respect.
H.L. Mencken Quotes: People constantly speak of 'the
Looking for an honest politician is like looking for an ethical burglar.
H.L. Mencken Quotes: Looking for an honest politician
After all, the world is not our handiwork, and we are not responsible for what goes on in it, save within very narrow limits.
H.L. Mencken Quotes: After all, the world is
One of the most irrational of all the conventions of modern society is the one to the effect that religious opinions should be respected. ... [This] convention protects them, and so they proceed with their blather unwhipped and almost unmolested, to the great damage of common sense and common decency. that they should have this immunity is an outrage. There is nothing in religious ideas, as a class, to lift them above other ideas. On the contrary, they are always dubious and often quite silly. Nor is there any visible intellectual dignity in theologians. Few of them know anything that is worth knowing, and not many of them are even honest.
H.L. Mencken Quotes: One of the most irrational
Government today is growing too strong to be safe. There are no longer any citizens in the world there are only subjects. They work day in and day out for their masters they are bound to die for their masters at call. Out of this working and dying they tend to get less and less.
H.L. Mencken Quotes: Government today is growing too
A large part of altruism, even when it is perfectly honest, is grounded upon the fact that it is uncomfortable to have unhappy people about one.
H.L. Mencken Quotes: A large part of altruism,
The course of the United States in World War II, I said, was dishonest, dishonorable, and ignominious, and the Sunpapers, by supporting Roosevelt's foreign policy, shared in this disgrace.
H.L. Mencken Quotes: The course of the United
Here is something that the psychologists have so far neglected: the love of ugliness for its own sake, the lust to make the world intolerable. Its habitat is the United States. Out of the melting pot emerges a race which hates beauty as it hates truth.
H.L. Mencken Quotes: Here is something that the
Here is tragedy and here is America. For the curse of the country, as well of all democracies, is precisely the fact that it treats its best men as enemies. The aim of our society, if it may be said to have an aim, is to iron them out. The ideal American, in the public sense, is a respectable vacuum.
H.L. Mencken Quotes: Here is tragedy and here
When a woman says she won't, it's a good sign that she will. And when she says she will, it is an even better sign.
H.L. Mencken Quotes: When a woman says she
I know of no human being who has a better time than an eager and energetic young reporter.
H.L. Mencken Quotes: I know of no human
Communism, like any other revealed religion, is largely made up of prophecies.
H.L. Mencken Quotes: Communism, like any other revealed
Historian: an unsuccessful novelist.
H.L. Mencken Quotes: Historian: an unsuccessful novelist.
Liberals have many tails and chase them all.
H.L. Mencken Quotes: Liberals have many tails and
A tin horn politician with the manner of a rural corn doctor and the mien of a ham actor
H.L. Mencken Quotes: A tin horn politician with
This combat between proletariat and plutocracy is, after all, itself a civil war. Two inferiorities struggle for the privilege of polluting the world.
H.L. Mencken Quotes: This combat between proletariat and
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.
H.L. Mencken Quotes: We must respect the other
Morality and honor are not to be confused. 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.
H.L. Mencken Quotes: Morality and honor are not
After all, why be good? How many will actually believe it of us?
H.L. Mencken Quotes: After all, why be good?
What ass first let loose the doctrine that the suffrage is a high boon and voting a noble privilege?
H.L. Mencken Quotes: What ass first let loose
[Art is] an attempt to escape from life.
H.L. Mencken Quotes: [Art is] an attempt to
One of the most mawkish of human delusions is the notion that friendship should be eternal, or, at all events, life-long, and that any act which puts a term to it is somehow discreditable.
H.L. Mencken Quotes: One of the most mawkish
The opera ... is to music what a bawdy house is to a cathedral.
H.L. Mencken Quotes: The opera ... is to
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 Quotes: Democracy turns upon and devours
On the one hand, we may tell the truth, regardless of consequences, and on the other hand we may mellow it and sophisticate it to make it humane and tolerable.
H.L. Mencken Quotes: On the one hand, we
No matter how much a woman loved a man, it would still give her a glow to see him commit suicide for her.
H.L. Mencken Quotes: No matter how much a
The plain people, hereafter as in the past, will continue to make their own language, and the best that grammarians can do is to follow after it, haltingly, and not often with much insight into it.
H.L. Mencken Quotes: The plain people, hereafter as
It is the fundamental theory of all the more recent American law ... that the average citizen is half-witted, and hence not to be trusted to either his own devices or his own thoughts.
H.L. Mencken Quotes: It is the fundamental theory
It is the dull man who is always sure, and the sure man who is always dull.
H.L. Mencken Quotes: It is the dull man
Save among politicians it is no longer necessary for any educated American to profess belief in Thirteenth Century ideas
H.L. Mencken Quotes: Save among politicians it is
The general burden of the Coolidge memoirs was that the right hon. gentleman was a typical American, and some hinted that he was the most typical since Lincoln. As the English say, I find myself quite unable to associate myself with that thesis. He was, in truth, almost as unlike the average of his countrymen as if he had been born green. The Americano is an expansive fellow, a back-slapper, full of amiability; Coolidge was reserved and even muriatic. The Americano has a stupendous capacity for believing, and especially for believing in what is palpably not true; Coolidge was, in his fundamental metaphysics, an agnostic. The Americano dreams vast dreams, and is hag-ridden by a demon; Coolidge was not mount but rider, and his steed was a mechanical horse. The Americano, in his normal incarnation, challenges fate at every step and his whole life is a struggle; Coolidge took things as they came.
H.L. Mencken Quotes: The general burden of the
The Gettysburg Adress has been included, of late, in several anthologies of poetry. It actually meets the major requirement of all poetry: It is a mellifluous and emotional statement of the obviously not true. The men who fought for self-determination at Gettysburg were not the Federals but the Confederates.
H.L. Mencken Quotes: The Gettysburg Adress has been
I drink exactly as much as I want, and one drink more.
H.L. Mencken Quotes: I drink exactly as much
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 Quotes: Whenever you hear a man
The townspeople are morons, yokels, peasants and genus homo boobiensis ... surrounded by gaping primates from the upland vallies.
H.L. Mencken Quotes: The townspeople are morons, yokels,
The so-called Philosophy of India is even more blowsy and senseless than the metaphysics of the West. It is at war with everything we know of the workings of the human mind, and with every sound idea formulated by mankind. If it prevailed in the whole modern world we'd still be in the Thirteenth Century; nay, we'd be back among the Egyptians of the pyramid age. Its only coherent contribution to Western thought has been theosophy-and theosophy is as idiotic as Christian Science. It has absolutely nothing to offer a civilized white man.
H.L. Mencken Quotes: The so-called Philosophy of India
Bachelors know more about women than married men; if they didn't they'd be married too.
H.L. Mencken Quotes: Bachelors know more about women
Shave a gorilla and it would be almost impossible, at twenty paces, to distinguish him from a heavyweight champion of the world. Skin a chimpanzee, and it would take an autopsy to prove he was not a theologian.
H.L. Mencken Quotes: Shave a gorilla and it
One of the laudable by-products of the Freudian quackery is the discovery that lying, in most cases, is involuntary and inevitable
that the liar can no more avoid it than he can avoid blinking his eyes when a light flashes or jumping when a bomb goes off behind him.
H.L. Mencken Quotes: One of the laudable by-products
The way for newspapers to meet the competition of radio and television is simply to get out better papers.
H.L. Mencken Quotes: The way for newspapers to
What are the characters that I discern most clearly in the so-called Anglo-Saxon type of man? I may answer at once that two stickout above all others. One is his curious and apparently incurable incompetence
his congenital inability to do any difficult thing easily and well, whether it be isolating a bacillus or writing a sonata. The other is his astounding susceptibility to fears and alarms
in short, his hereditary cowardice ... There is no record in history of any Anglo-Saxon nation entering upon any great war without allies.
H.L. Mencken Quotes: What are the characters that
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