H. L. Mencken Quotes

A government at bottom is nothing more than a group of men, and as a practical matter most of them are inferior men. ... Yet these nonentities, by the intellectual laziness of men in general ... are generally obeyed as a matter of duty (and) assumed to have a kind of wisdom that is superior to ordinary wisdom.

H. L. Mencken

• Men
• Wisdom

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Quotes to Explore

• 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

• There is no problem that is not improved by effort, and no effort that is too paltry to be worth undertaking.

  

  Sam Waterston
  • Problem
  • Effort
  • Worth

• I will say this: I think 'Big Brother' is the biggest snooze known to mankind.

  

  R. J. Cutler
  • Think
  • Brother
  • Think Big

• I think this happens to a lot of people, men and women, where you reach a point in your life and all of a sudden realize that things have changed. You suddenly realize that people are coming up behind you, that maybe somebody might want to replace you for less money.

  

  Callie Khouri
  • People
  • Life
  • Up

• Unhappy is he to whom the memories of childhood bring only fear and sadness.

  

  H. P. Lovecraft
  • Fear
  • Childhood
  • Memories

• A chicken grows up in a little less time than an ostrich. An ostrich takes a whole year. A chicken takes a few months.

  

  Jack Horner
  • Up
  • Time
  • Year

• My label in Toronto was 'Stand Pat' and I think that was a fair assessment. I tried to be patient, but if a trade came along - big or small - that I thought should be made, I would make it.

  

  Pat Gillick
  • Small
  • Thought
  • Stand

• I'd like to explore the more abstract side of people's minds, as opposed to the usual sitcom stuff. I don't want to do the typical sitcom-type humor. I'd want to do stuff like go bowling with pineapples.

  

  Harland Williams
  • People
  • Humor
  • Explore

• I think it's the responsibility of a major opera house not only to cultivate debate and get people thinking, but also to be interfaced with things that challenge them. To challenge its audience and not just deliver things that they know, even though some of those things are wonderful.

  

  Wayne McGregor
  • People
  • Thinking
  • House

• I never consciously got into comedy. It was sort of one of those things where I was a theater student, I was acting, I was doing comedy, I was doing dramatic stuff, so it's been something that I've always done and enjoyed doing and had an instinct to be relatively good at.

  

  Aasif Mandvi
  • Good
  • Done
  • Comedy

• I would never say somebody had to vote for anybody. That would be terrible. I haven't said that.

  

  Pat Robertson
  • Said
  • Say
  • Vote

• The ultimate mystery is one's own self.

  

  Sammy Davis, Jr.
  • Self
  • Mystery
  • Ultimate

• I'm really fascinated by lingos and colloquialisms that are outmoded and have gone by the wayside. I love the way people spoke in the '30s, and the amazing slang of the mid-'60s and '70s.

  

  Beck
  • People
  • Really
  • Fascinated

• The go-to reflex all over Hollywood is still likeability. I've always had a problem with it because I think I have a weird barometer in the sense that some of the characters I've cared about the most in movies are characters that are often thought of as despicable.

  

  Damien Chazelle
  • Think
  • Problem
  • Thought

• Our present will become the past of other men and women. We depend on them to remember it with the complexity with which it was suffered. As others, once, depended on us.

  

  Eavan Boland
  • Men
  • Women
  • Remember

• It is common, and encouraged by many journals, for research to be judged by the impact factor of the journal that publishes it. But as a journal's score is an average, it says little about the quality of any individual piece of research.

  

  Randy Schekman
  • Quality
  • Research
  • Impact

• Growth doesn't hurt. This is what I've learned. In the end, it doesn't hurt. It hurts while it's happening. But in the end, you know, for life, for parenting, and for the arts, it's not a bad - not a bad thing to try for.

  

  Laura Dern
  • Life
  • Bad
  • Hurt

• Every year is beautiful, and I try to appreciate each moment in my career, but 30 was definitely one of my best.

  

  Irina Shayk
  • Career
  • Beautiful
  • Best

• I seem to get motivated a few months at a time, and then something stressful breaks the routine, and I just fold.

  

  Chris Farley
  • Time
  • Motivated

• If I wanted to destroy a nation, I would give it too much and I would have it on its knees, miserable, greedy and sick.

  

  John Steinbeck
  • Sick

• Men endured so much for war, but for peace they dared nothing.

  

  Olaf Stapledon
  • Men
  • War
  • Peace

• What freezings I have felt, what dark days seen, What old December's bareness everywhere!

  

  William Shakespeare
  • Dark
  • Winter
  • Felt

• A government at bottom is nothing more than a group of men, and as a practical matter most of them are inferior men. ... Yet these nonentities, by the intellectual laziness of men in general ... are generally obeyed as a matter of duty (and) assumed to have a kind of wisdom that is superior to ordinary wisdom.

  

  H. L. Mencken
  • Men
  • Wisdom