H. L. Mencken Quotes
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To die for an idea; it is unquestionably noble. But how much nobler it would be if men died for ideas that were true!
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The trouble with Communism is the Communists, just as the trouble with Christianity is the Christians.
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Alimony - the ransom that the happy pay to the devil.
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Women have a hard time of it in this world. They are oppressed by man-made laws, man-made social customs, masculine egoism, the delusion of masculine superiority. Their one comfort is the assurance that, even though it may be impossible to prevail against man, it is always possible to enslave and torture a man.
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Voting is simply a way of determining which side is the stronger without putting it to the test of fighting.
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The two main ideas that run through all of my writing, whether it be literary criticism or political polemic are these: I am strong in favor of liberty and I hate fraud.
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Theology is the effort to explain the unknowable in terms of the not worth knowing.
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The professor must be an obscurantist or he is nothing; he has a special and unmatchable talent for dullness, his central aim is not to expose the truth clearly, but to exhibit his profundity, his esotericity - in brief to stagger sophomores and other professors.
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I confess I enjoy democracy immensely. It is incomparably idiotic, and hence incomparably amusing.
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Men always try to make virtues of their weaknesses. Fear of death and fear of life both become piety.
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Once a woman passes a certain point in intelligence she finds it almost impossible to get a husband: she simply cannot go on listening without snickering.
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I go on working for the same reason that a hen goes on laying eggs.
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The most disgusting cad in the world is the man who on the grounds of decorum and morality avoids the game of love. He is one who puts his own ease and security above the most laudable of philanthropies.
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When you sympathize with a married woman you either make two enemies or gain one wife and one friend.
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Nine times out of ten, in the arts as in life, there is actually no truth to be discovered; there is only error to be exposed.
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A metaphysician is one who, when you remark that twice two makes four, demands to know what you mean by twice, what by two, what by makes, and what by four. For asking such questions metaphysicians are supported in oriental luxury in the universities, and respected as educated and intelligent men.
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As the arteries grow hard, the heart grows soft.
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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.
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Archbishop - A Christian ecclesiastic of a rank superior to that attained by Christ.
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Let's not burn the universities yet. After all, the damage they do might be worse.
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American journalism (like the journalism of any other country) is predominantly paltry and worthless. Its pretensions are enormous, but its achievements are insignificant.
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The virulence of the national appetite for bogus revelation.
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The idea that leisure is of value in itself is only conditionally true. The average man simply spends his leisure as a dog spends it. His recreations are all puerile, and the time supposed to benefit him really only stupefies him.
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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.