H. L. Mencken Quotes
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It is difficult to imagine anyone having any real hopes for the human race in the face of the fact that the great majority of men still believe that the universe is run by a gaseous vertebrate of astronomical heft and girth, who is nevertheless interested in the minutest details of the private conduct of even the meanest man.
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Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.
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Bachelors know more about women than married men; if they didn't they'd be married too.
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Temptation is a woman's weapon and man's excuse.
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If what I may believe - about gall-stones, the Constitution, castor oil, or God - is conditioned by law, then I am not a free man.
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Without a doubt there are women who would vote intelligently. There are also men who knit socks beautifully.
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What I admire most in any man is a serene spirit, a steady freedom from moral indignation, and all-embracing tolerance--in brief,what is commonly called sportsmanship.
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Evil: That which one believes of others. It is a sin to believe evil of others, but it is seldom a mistake
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The argument that capital punishment degrades the state is moonshine, for if that were true then it would degrade the state to send men to war... The state, in truth, is degraded in its very nature: a few butcheries cannot do it any further damage.
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The trouble with Communism is the Communists, just as the trouble with Christianity is the Christians.
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Some boys go to college and eventually succeed in getting out. Others go to college and never succeed in getting out. The latter are called professors.
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Government today is growing too strong to be safe. There are no longer any citizens in the world there are only subjects. They work day in and day out for their masters they are bound to die for their masters at call. Out of this working and dying they tend to get less and less.
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How little it takes to make life unbearable: a pebble in the shoe, a cockroach in the spaghetti, a woman's laugh.
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Every man is his own hell.
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Love, to the inferior man, remains almost wholly a physical matter. The heroine he most admires is the one who offers the grossest sexual provocation; the hero who makes his wife roll her eyes is a perambulating phallus.
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People constantly speak of 'the government' doing this or that, as they might speak of God doing it. But the government is really nothing but a group of men, and usually they are very inferior men. They may have some better man working for them, but they themselves are seldom worthy of any respect.
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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.
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The world always makes the assumption that the exposure of an error is identical with the discovery of truth - that error and truth are simply opposite. They are nothing of the sort. What the world turns to, when it has been cured of one error, is usually simply another error, and maybe one worse than the first one.
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Platitude: an idea (a) that is admitted to be true by everyone, and (b) that is not true.
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There is always an easy solution to every problem - neat, plausible, and wrong.
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The allurement that women hold out to men is precisely the allurement that Cape Hatteras holds out to sailors: they are enormously dangerous and hence enormously fascinating.
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History deals mainly with captains and kings, gods and prophets, exploiters and despoilers, not with useful men.
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The way to hold a husband is to keep him a little jealous; the way to lose him is to keep him a little more jealous.
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All men are frauds. The only difference between them is that some admit it. I myself deny it.