H. L. Mencken Quotes

Some immemorial imbecilities have been added deliberately, on the ground that it is just as interesting to note how foolish men have been as to note how wise they have been.

H. L. Mencken

• Men
• Interesting
• Wise

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Quotes to Explore

• Architecture is my work, and I've spent my whole life at a drawing board, but life is more important than architecture. What matters is to improve human beings.

  

  Oscar Niemeyer
  • Life
  • Work
  • Important

• I love a good Slash guitar riff. It's sexy!

  

  Malin Akerman
  • Good
  • Sexy
  • Guitar

• To most boys with growing limbs and swelling sinews, physical activity is a natural instinct, and there is no need to drive them into the football field or the fives court: they go there because they like it, and there is no need to make games compulsory for them.

  

  E. F. Benson
  • Growing
  • Football
  • Games

• I want to stop transforming and just start being.

  

  Ursula Burns
  • Want
  • Stop
  • Start

• It may be a cold, clammy thing to say, but those that treat friendship the same as any other selfishness seem to get the most out of it.

  

  E. W. Howe
  • May
  • Cold
  • Friendship

• If someone is alone reading my poems, I hope it would be like reading someone's notebook. A record. Of a place, beauty, difficulty. A familiar daily struggle.

  

  Fanny Howe
  • Hope
  • Reading
  • Alone

• Southern Appalachians have been ridiculed since the country began. In fiction, they're usually depicted in a cartoonish manner. The region is poor, and very suspicious of outsiders, so there's a sort of 'us versus them' situation. They're easy to poke fun at.

  

  Barbara Kingsolver
  • Country
  • Fun
  • Easy

• Many times, when you do what I do or work in journalism in general, people try to not explicitly present their opinions on topics.

  

  Larry Wilmore
  • People
  • Work
  • Present

• My writing has been largely concerned with the depicting of Negro life in America.

  

  Langston Hughes
  • Life
  • Writing
  • America

• I'm looking at doing things that challenge me.

  

  Orlando Bloom
  • Me
  • Challenge
  • Doing

• I'm from the school of, 'if you want more, you have to require more from yourself.'

  

  Vera Farmiga
  • School
  • Want
  • Yourself

• If humanity does not opt for integrity we are through completely. It is absolutely touch and go. Each one of us could make the difference.

  

  R. Buckminster Fuller
  • Humanity
  • Integrity
  • Through

• I cannot be music director at La Scala and at Staatsoper. This would be unfair to one of the two institutions.

  

  Daniel Barenboim
  • Music
  • Two
  • Director

• Christ didn't choose the rich to preach the doctrine; he choose 12 poor ignorant workers - that is, he chose the proletariat of the times.

  

  Fidel Castro
  • Rich
  • Choose
  • Ignorant

• Yeah, I'm very impressed with Lifetime, this is the first time I've worked with them. I really like the kind of programming that they're into, so I'm hoping that I will.

  

  Beau Bridges
  • Time
  • First
  • Programming

• True virtue is life under the direction of reason.

  

  Baruch Spinoza
  • Life
  • True
  • Direction

• I don't need a piece of paper to suggest that I can commit myself.

  

  Francesca Annis
  • Myself
  • Need
  • Paper

• Politics is the business of getting power and privilege without possessing merit. A politician is anyone who asks individuals to surrender part of their liberty- their power and privilege- to State, Masses, Mankind, Planet Earth, or whatever. This state, those masses, that mankind, and the planet will then be run by ... politicians.

  

  P. J. O'Rourke
  • Business
  • Power
  • Earth

• I am addicted to poetry, but the truth is I cannot pass up a good hard-boiled mystery.

  

  Luis Alberto Urrea
  • Up
  • Good
  • Truth

• Only within the moment of time represented by the present century has one species -- man -- acquired significant power to alter the nature of the world.

  

  Rachel Carson
  • Time
  • World
  • Power

• A democracy is a government in the hands of men of low birth, no property, and vulgar employments.

  

  Aristotle
  • Men
  • Government
  • Democracy

• 'You and I don’t actually need to be here for this,' I said to the goat. The goat didn’t respond, but I could tell she agreed with me.

  

  John Scalzi
  • She

• Some immemorial imbecilities have been added deliberately, on the ground that it is just as interesting to note how foolish men have been as to note how wise they have been.

  

  H. L. Mencken
  • Men
  • Interesting
  • Wise