H.L. Mencken

Country United States
Born Monday, 30 November -0001
Category
Quotes 61
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Title Category
The capacity of human beings to bore one another seems to be vastly greater than that of any other animal. Uncategorized
Say what you will about the Ten Commandments, you must always come back to the pleasant fact that there are only ten of them. Uncategorized
Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy. Uncategorized
Platitude: an idea (a) that is admitted to be true by everyone, and (b) that is not true. Uncategorized
Philosophy consists very largely of one philosopher arguing that all others are jackasses. He usually proves it, and I should add that he also usually proves that he is one himself. Uncategorized
Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public. Uncategorized
Never let your inferiors do you a favor - it will be extremely costly. Uncategorized
Misogynist: A man who hates women as much as women hate one another. Uncategorized
Men are the only animals that devote themselves, day in and day out, to making one another unhappy. It is an art like any other. Its virtuosi are called altruists. Uncategorized
Man is never honestly the fatalist, nor even the stoic. He fights his fate, often desperately. He is forever entering bold exceptions to the rulings of the bench of gods. This fighting, no doubt, makes for human progress, for it favors the strong and the brave. It also makes for beauty, for lesser men try to escape from a hopeless and intolerable world by creating a more lovely one of their own. Uncategorized
Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence. Uncategorized
It is the dull man who is always sure, and the sure man who is always dull. Uncategorized
It is now quite lawful for a Catholic woman to avoid pregnancy by a resort to mathematics, though she is still forbidden to resort to physics or chemistry. Uncategorized
It is inaccurate to say that I hate everything. I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty, and common decency. This makes me forever ineligible for public office. Uncategorized
It is impossible to imagine Goethe or Beethoven being good at billiards or golf. Uncategorized
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. Uncategorized
It is even harder for the average ape to believe that he has descended from man. Uncategorized
Injustice is relatively easy to bear; what stings is justice. Uncategorized
In the United States, doing good has come to be, like patriotism, a favorite device of persons with something to sell. Uncategorized
I never lecture, not because I am shy or a bad speaker, but simply because I detest the sort of people who go to lectures and don't want to meet them. Uncategorized