Quotes by Mencken, H. L.

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

Mencken, H. L. on abuse
8 fans of this quote   

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

Mencken, H. L. on age and aging   

"Don't overestimate the decency of the human race."

Mencken, H. L. on decency
3 fans of this quote   

"The cure for the evils of democracy is more democracy."

Mencken, H. L. on democracy   

"Democracy is the theory that the common people know what They want, and deserve to get it good and hard."

Mencken, H. L. on democracy   

"Democracy is also a form of religion. It is the worship of jackals by jackasses."

Mencken, H. L. on democracy   

"I confess I enjoy democracy immensely. It is incomparably idiotic, and hence incomparably amusing."

Mencken, H. L. on democracy   

"Men become civilized, not in proportion to their willingness to believe, but in proportion to their readiness to doubt."

Mencken, H. L. on doubt   

"The lunatic fringe wags the underdog."

Mencken, H. L. on eccentricity
4 fans of this quote   

"It is hard for the ape to believe he descended from man."

Mencken, H. L. on evolution
3 fans of this quote   

"Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable."

Mencken, H. L. on faith
4 fans of this quote   

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

Mencken, H. L. on fame   

"Every man sees in his relatives, and especially in his cousins, a series of grotesque caricatures of himself."

Mencken, H. L. on family   

"No one hates his job so heartily as a farmer."

Mencken, H. L. on farming and farmers   

"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."

Mencken, H. L. on flirting
8 fans of this quote   

"We must be willing to pay a price for freedom."

Mencken, H. L. on freedom   

"A gentlemen is one who never strikes a woman without provocation."

Mencken, H. L. on gentlemen
3 fans of this quote   

"On one issue at least, men and women agree; they both distrust women."

Mencken, H. L. on agreement
5 fans of this quote   

"A prohibitionist is the sort of man one couldn't care to drink with, even if he drank."

Mencken, H. L. on alcohol and alcoholism   

"Alimony -- the ransom that the happy pay to the devil."

Mencken, H. L. on alimony
3 fans of this quote   

"God is the immemorial refuge of the incompetent, the helpless, the miserable. They find not only sanctuary in His arms, but also a kind of superiority, soothing to their macerated egos: He will set them above their betters."

Mencken, H. L. on god   

"The objection of the scandalmonger is not that she tells of racy doings, but that she pretends to be indignant about them."

Mencken, H. L. on gossip   

"Government is actually the worst failure of civilized man. There has never been a really good one, and even those that are most tolerable are arbitrary, cruel, grasping and unintelligent."

Mencken, H. L. on government   

"As the arteries grow hard, the heart grows soft."

Mencken, H. L. on art   

"In war the heroes always outnumber the soldiers ten to one."

Mencken, H. L. on heroes and heroism   

"Historian -- an unsuccessful novelist."

Mencken, H. L. on history and historians   

"Honor is simply the morality of superior men."

Mencken, H. L. on honor
3 fans of this quote   

"Have you ever watched a crab on the shore crawling backward in search of the Atlantic Ocean, and missing? That's the way the mind of man operates."

Mencken, H. L. on humankind   

"Man is a beautiful machine that works very badly."

Mencken, H. L. on humankind   

"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."

Mencken, H. L. on humankind   

"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."

Mencken, H. L. on husbands   

"Husbands never become good; they merely become proficient."

Mencken, H. L. on husbands   

"Hygiene is the corruption of medicine by morality. It is impossible to find a hygienist who does not debase his theory of the healthful with a theory of the virtuous. The true aim of medicine is not to make men virtuous; it is to safeguard and rescue them from the consequences of their vices."

Mencken, H. L. on hygiene   

"An idealist is one who, on noticing that a rose smells better than a cabbage, concludes that it is also more nourishing."

Mencken, H. L. on ideals and idealism   

"There is nothing worse than an idle hour, with no occupation offering. People who have many such hours are simply animals waiting docilely for death. We all come to that state soon or late. It is the curse of senility."

Mencken, H. L. on idleness   

"It is impossible to imagine the universe run by a wise, just and omnipotent God, but it is quite easy to imagine it run by a board of gods. If such a board actually exists it operates precisely like the board of a corporation that is losing money."

Mencken, H. L. on imagination   

"The curse of man, and the cause of nearly all his woe, is his stupendous capacity for believing the incredible."

Mencken, H. L. on incredulity   

"The penalty for laughing in a courtroom is six months in jail; if it were not for this penalty, the jury would never hear the evidence."

Mencken, H. L. on juries   

"Injustice is relatively easy to bear what stings is justice."

Mencken, H. L. on justice   

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

Mencken, H. L. on kisses and kissing