Deep within the heart of every evangelist lies the wreck of a car salesman. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
A nun, at best, is only half a woman, just as a priest is only half a man. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
The scent of frying astronomers long ago ceased to ascend to Yahweh. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
Progress: The process whereby the human race has got rid of whiskers, the vermiform appendix, and God. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
The difference between the smartest dog and the stupidest man - say a Tennessee Holy Roller - is really very small. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
Metaphysics is almost always an attempt to prove the incredible by an appeal to the unintelligible. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
Whenever a reporter is assigned to cover a Methodist conference, he comes home an atheist. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
When I die, I shall be content to vanish into nothingness… No show, however good, could conceivably be good forever I do… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
What is the function that a clergyman performs in the world? Answer: He gets his living by assuring idiots that he can… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
The acting that one sees upon the stage does not show how human beings comport themselves in crises, but how actors think… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
The Book of Revelation has all the authority, in these theological uplands, of military orders in time of war. The people turn… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
The Jews fastened their religion upon the Western world, not because it was more reasonable than the religions of their contemporaries -… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
The so-called religious organizations which now lead the war against the teaching of evolution are nothing more, at bottom, than conspiracies of… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
Of learned men, the clergy show the lowest development of professional ethics. Any pastor is free to cadge customers from the divines… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
The average man never really thinks from end to end of his life. The mental activity of such people is only a… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
For it is the natural tendency of the ignorant to believe what is not true. In order to overcome that tendency it… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
The priest, realistically considered, is the most immoral of men, for he is always willing to sacrifice every other sort of good… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
The notion that science does not concern itself with first causes - that it leaves the field to theology or metaphysics, and… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
The taboos that I have mentioned are extraordinarily harsh and numerous. They stand around nearly every subject that is genuinely important to… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
What I got in Sunday school ... was simply a firm conviction that the Christian faith was full of palpable absurdities, and… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
Moral certainty is always a sign of cultural inferiority. The more uncivilized the man, the surer he is that he knows precisely… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
Here the only genuine conflict is between true believers. Of a given text in Holy Writ one faction may say this thing… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
There comes a day of public ceremonial, and a chance to make a speech… A million voters with IQs below 60 have… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
A bad artist almost always tries to conceal his incompetence by whooping up a new formula. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share
By profession a biologist, [Thomas Henry Huxley] covered in fact the whole field of the exact sciences, and then bulged through its four fences.… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share
So few men are really worth knowing, that it seems a shameful waste to let an anthropoid prejudice stand in the way of free… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share
Man's objection to love is that it dies hard; woman's, that when it is dead, it stays dead. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share
For it is an absurdity to call a country civilized in which a decent and industrious man, laboriously mastering a trade which is valuble… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share
Women have simple tastes. They get pleasure out of the conversation of children in arms and men in love. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share
The critic, to interpret his artist, even to understand his artist, must be able to get into the mind of his artist; he must… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share
There is, in fact, nothing about religious opinions that entitles them to any more respect than other opinions get. On the contrary, they tend… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share
Liberty ... was a two-headed boon. There was first, the liberty of the people as a whole to determine the forms of their own… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share
To the extent that I am genuinely educated, I am suspicious of all the things that the average citizen believes and the average pedagogue… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share
Philosophy first constructs a scheme of happiness and then tries to fit the world to it. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share
For it is the natural tendency of the ignorant to believe what is not true. In order to overcome that tendency it is not… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share
