H. L. Mencken Quotes

The harsh, useful things of the world, from pulling teeth to digging potatoes, are best done by men who are as starkly sober as so many convicts in the death-house, but the lovely and useless things, the charming and exhilarating things, are best done by men with, as the phrase is, a few sheets in the wind.

H. L. Mencken

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Quotes to Explore

• No Americans wants to see somebody lose their house because of health bills. Their boat? Maybe. Maybe the boat. But not the house.

  

  P. J. O'Rourke
  • House
  • Health
  • Lose

• High fashion has become representative of stability in unstable places; that allows you to have a voice in the world stage.

  

  Hailey Gates
  • World
  • High
  • Fashion

• A lot of what is most beautiful about the world arises from struggle.

  

  Malcolm Gladwell
  • World
  • Beautiful
  • Struggle

• White Americans today don't know what in the world to do because when they put us behind them, that's where they made their mistake... they put us behind them, and we watched every move they made.

  

  Fannie Lou Hamer
  • World
  • Today
  • Mistake

• I have a whole closet in my house that's dedicated just to jackets and coats, stuff that I've collected over the years.

  

  A. J. Cook
  • House
  • Years
  • Over

• I have one son. Of everything I've done in my life, nothing matches the feeling of having life growing inside you.

  

  Barbra Streisand
  • Life
  • Done
  • Feeling

• The opera is to music what a bawdy house is to a cathedral.

  

  H. L. Mencken
  • Music
  • House
  • Opera

• There are more books in the world than hours in which to read them. We are thus deeply influenced by books we haven't read, that we haven't had the time to read.

  

  Umberto Eco
  • Time
  • World
  • More

• Getting married and then having children just centered me and grounded my values. It was like a whole new world. It started happening in New York with a little play called Cruise Control, where I relaxed, and then I kept getting work in Hollywood till this series happened.

  

  Patricia Richardson
  • World
  • Work
  • Children

• I find that talking about myself is often the most boring thing in the world. Sixty per cent of interviews I find mechanical.

  

  Carla Bruni
  • World
  • Myself
  • Find

• I really do feel very lucky. I've had my kids and my relationships. I've set my life down - I'm in my house, and I'm alone with my children - and I'm at peace, and that's a really nice feeling. All I really want in my life is to maintain that.

  

  Kate Hudson
  • Life
  • Children
  • Kids

• The reduction in compassion that happens when we're all behind computer screens is not good for the world.

  

  Sam Altman
  • World
  • Good
  • Compassion

• Whenever possible, I use local, fresh ingredients, just because it tastes and feels better to eat an egg or a tomato or a hamburger that wasn't flown halfway around the world, that didn't travel on a truck and get stuck in traffic jams, that hasn't been sitting in a supermarket's refrigerator case for days.

  

  Kate Christensen
  • World
  • Travel
  • Better

• I never really felt I had the same respect as my male team-mates. My opinion wasn't worth as much. I used to sit quietly in meetings and not say anything, as I knew my opinions would be disregarded. And that's after I had become Olympic champion and multiple world champion.

  

  Victoria Pendleton
  • World
  • Team
  • Respect

• Personally, coming out was one of the most important things I've ever done, lifting from my shoulders the millstone of lies that I hadn't even realized I was carrying.

  

  Ian Mckellen
  • Important
  • Done
  • Lies

• My first album was called 'Badlands,' and it's something that I think I'm most proud of having done in my life.

  

  Halsey
  • Life
  • Done
  • Proud

• I think when I was 12, I started reading Evelyn Waugh, and I loved Evelyn Waugh so much, and I thought: 'This is how the world really is. If I could be Evelyn Waugh, then I would be happy.'

  

  Candace Bushnell
  • World
  • Happy
  • Reading

• For the purposes of the play, it was perfect to be able to use that and the stresses and strains that there were. At the end of the play, the mother realizes the terrible things she had done.

  

  Fay Wray
  • Mother
  • Perfect
  • Play

• When public men indulge themselves in abuse, when they deny others a fair trial, when they resort to innuendo and insinuation, to libel, scandal, and suspicion, then our democratic society is outraged, and democracy is baffled.

  

  J. William Fulbright
  • Men
  • Society
  • Democracy

• But the good news was that my elder sister refused to get married straight away and I couldn't get married until she did so I had the licence to go off and dream.

  

  Indra Nooyi
  • Good
  • She
  • Dream

• I've made a career of taking roles that other actresses didn't want.

  

  Jennifer Coolidge
  • Career

• As science-fiction was what I read in college, it was natural that I should be tempted to write it. So I did, and continued to do so, even while I was co-authoring mysteries with my husband Evan.

  

  Ann Maxwell
  • Science
  • College
  • Husband

• The harsh, useful things of the world, from pulling teeth to digging potatoes, are best done by men who are as starkly sober as so many convicts in the death-house, but the lovely and useless things, the charming and exhilarating things, are best done by men with, as the phrase is, a few sheets in the wind.

  

  H. L. Mencken
  • World
  • Men
  • Done