H. L. Mencken - A Mencken chrestomathy (1949)

47 Sourced Quotes

View all H. L. Mencken Quotes
Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.

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.

H. L. Mencken
A celebrity is one who is known to many persons he is glad he doesn't know.

H. L. Mencken
Lawyer — One who protects us against robbers by taking away the temptation.

H. L. Mencken
Conscience is the inner voice that warns us somebody may be looking.

H. L. Mencken
We are here and it is now: further than that, all human knowledge is moonshine.

H. L. Mencken
Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under.

H. L. Mencken
Immorality is the morality of those who are having a better time. You will never convince the average farmer's mare that the late Maud S. was not dreadfully immoral.

H. L. Mencken
In the duel of sex woman fights from a dreadnaught, and man from an open raft.

H. L. Mencken
Theology — An effort to explain the unknowable by putting it into terms of the not worth knowing.

H. L. Mencken
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 × y is less than y.

H. L. Mencken
Self-repect – The secure feeling that no one, as yet, is suspicious.

H. L. Mencken
A man who has throttled a bad impulse has at least some consolation in his agonies, but a man who has throttled a good one is in a bad way indeed.

H. L. Mencken
Christian — One who is willing to serve three Gods, but draws the line at one wife.

H. L. Mencken
The New Deal began, like the Salvation Army, by promising to save humanity. It ended, again like the Salvation Army, by running flop-houses and disturbing the peace.

H. L. Mencken
Jury — A group of twelve men who, having lied to the judge about their hearing, health and business engagements, have failed to fool him.

H. L. Mencken
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.

H. L. Mencken
A newspaper is a device for making the ignorant more ignorant and the crazy crazier.

H. L. Mencken
Archbishop – A Christian ecclesiastic of a rank superior to that attained by Christ.

H. L. Mencken
Osteopath — One who argues that all human ills are caused by the pressure of hard bone on soft tissue. The proof of his theory is to be found in the heads of those who believe it.

H. L. Mencken
When women kiss, it always reminds one of prize-fighters shaking hands.

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

H. L. Mencken
Husbands never become good; they merely become proficient.

H. L. Mencken
Pathology would remain a lovely science, even if there were no therapeutics, just as seismology is a lovely science, though no one knows how to stop earthquakes.

H. L. Mencken
Remorse — Regret that one waited so long to do it.

H. L. Mencken