H. L. Mencken Quotes

529 Sourced Quotes

The verdict of a jury is the a priori opinion of that juror who smokes the worst cigars.

H. L. Mencken
One horse-laugh is worth ten thousand syllogisms. It is not only more effective; it is also vastly more intelligent.

H. L. Mencken
A Galileo could no more be elected president of the United States than he could be elected Pope of Rome. Both high posts are reserved for men favored by God with an extraordinary genius for swathing the bitter facts of life in bandages of self-illusion.

H. L. Mencken
The ideal state for a philosopher, indeed, is celibacy tempered by polygamy.

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

H. L. Mencken
Science, at bottom, is really anti-intellectual. It always distrusts pure reason, and demands the production of objective fact.

H. L. Mencken
The artist is not a reporter, but a Great Teacher. It is not his business to depict the world as it is, but as it ought to be.

H. L. Mencken
Men become civilized, not in proportion to their willingness to believe, but in their readiness to doubt.

H. L. Mencken
If a sense of duty tortures a man, it also enables him to achieve prodigies.

H. L. Mencken
[Paul Patterson and I] soon got on the subject of the war, and I said flatly that I thought the Sun's course was not only ignorant and absurd, but also not a little disingenuous. It had gone over to the English in an abject and ignominious fashion, against all reason and all the obvious facts. Worse, it had yielded supinely to the most outrageous fiats of the Roosevelt censorship, and had even exceeded them. This shook Patterson somewhat, for he likes to think of himself as a news editor, and he insisted that in handling the war news the Sun had done good work.

H. L. Mencken
All of the great patriots now engaged in edging and squirming their way toward the Presidency of the Republic run true to form. That is to say, they are all extremely wary, and all more or less palpable frauds. What they want, primarily, is the job; the necessary equipment of unescapable issues, immutable principles and soaring ideals can wait until it becomes more certain which way the mob will be whooping.

H. L. Mencken
A fool who, after plain warning, persists in dosing himself with dangerous drugs should be free to do so, for his death is a benefit to the race in general.

H. L. Mencken
A man may be a fool and not know it — but not if he is married.

H. L. Mencken
Poetry has done enough when it charms, but prose must also convince.

H. L. Mencken
What ass first let loose the doctrine that the suffrage is a high boon and voting a noble privilege?

H. L. Mencken
Kipling, the grandson of a Methodist preacher, reveals the tin-pot evangelist with increasing clarity as youth and its ribaldries pass away and he falls back upon his fundamentals.

H. L. Mencken
The main thing that every political campaign in the United States demonstrates is that the politicians of all parties, despite their superficial enmities, are really members of one great brotherhood. Their principal, and indeed their sole, object is to collar public office, with all the privileges and profits that go therewith. They achieve this collaring by buying votes with other people's money. No professional politician is ever actually in favor of public economy. It is his implacable enemy, and he knows it. All professional politicians are dedicated wholeheartedly to waste and corruption. They are the enemies of every decent man.

H. L. Mencken
The worst government is 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.

H. L. Mencken
A society made up of individuals who were all capable of original thought would probably be unendurable.

H. L. Mencken
The doctrine that the cure for the evils of democracy is more democracy is like saying that the cure of crime is more crime.

H. L. Mencken
The majority of men prefer delusion to truth. It soothes. It is easy to grasp. Above all, it fits more snugly than the truth into a universe of false appearances—of complex and irrational phenomena, defectively grasped.

H. L. Mencken
The military caste did not originate as a party of patriots, but as a party of bandits

H. L. Mencken
When I mount the scaffold at last these will be my farewell words to the sheriff: Say what you will against me when I am gone, but don't forget to add, in common justice, that I was never converted to anything.

H. L. Mencken
I never listen to debates. They are dreadful things indeed. The plain truth is that I am not a fair man, and don't want to hear both sides. On all known subjects, ranging from aviation to xylophone-playing, I have fixed and invariable ideas. They have not changed since I was four or five.

H. L. Mencken
What is not true, as everyone knows, is always immensely more fascinating and satisfying to the vast majority of men than what is true. Truth has a harshness that alarms them, and an air of finality that collides with their incurable romanticism.

H. L. Mencken