Nothing is so abject and pathetic as a politician who has lost his job, save only a retired stud-horse. — H. L. Mencken Horse Copy Share Image
Man weeps to think that he will die so soon; woman, that she was born so long ago. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
We are here and it is now. Further than that, all human knowledge is moonshine. — H. L. Mencken Human Copy Share Image
Man, at his best, remains a sort of one-lunged animal, never completely rounded and perfect, as a cockroach, say, is perfect. — H. L. Mencken Animal Copy Share Image
War will never cease until babies begin to come into the world with larger cerebrums and smaller adrenal glands. — H. L. Mencken Babies Copy Share Image
What is the professor's function? To pass on to numskulls a body of so-called knowledge that is fragmentary, unimportant, and largely untrue. — H. L. Mencken Body Copy Share Image
The demagogue is one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots. — H. L. Mencken Cynical Copy Share Image
Imagine the Creator as a low comedian, and at once the world becomes explicable. — H. L. Mencken Atheism Copy Share Image
The capacity of human beings to bore one another seems to be vastly greater than that of any other animal. Some of… — H. L. Mencken Animal Copy Share Image
[Texas is] the place where there are the most cows and the least milk and the most rivers and the least water… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
It is almost as safe to assume that an artist of any dignity is against his country, i.e., against the environment in… — H. L. Mencken Art Copy Share Image
Man, without a saving touch of woman in him, is too doltish, too naive and romantic, too easily deluded and lulled to… — H. L. Mencken Corporations Copy Share Image
The public, with its mob yearning to be instructed, edified and pulled by the nose, demands certainties; it must be told definitely… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
God is the immemorial refuge of the incompetent, the helpless, and the miserable. They find not only sanctuary in his arms, but… — H. L. Mencken Agnosticism Copy Share Image
[T]he only thing wrong with Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address was that it was the South, not the North, that was fighting for… — H. L. Mencken Abraham Copy Share Image
Each party steals so many articles of faith from the other, and the candidates spend so much time making each other's speeches,… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
All that the Y.M.C.A.'s horse and rings really accomplished was to fill me with an ineradicable distaste, not only for Christian endeavor… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
Every step in human progress, from the first feeble stirrings in the abyss of time, has been opposed by the great majority… — H. L. Mencken Abyss Copy Share Image
Women decide the larger questions of life correctly and quickly, not because they are lucky guessers, not because they are divinely inspired,… — H. L. Mencken Feminism Copy Share Image
There is, in fact, no reason to believe that any given natural phenomenon, however marvelous it may seem today, will remain forever… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
By profession a biologist, [Thomas Henry Huxley] covered in fact the whole field of the exact sciences, and then bulged through its… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
The main thing that every political campaign in the United States demonstrates is that the politicians of all parties, despite their superficial… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
A government at bottom is nothing more than a group of men, and as a practical matter most of them are inferior… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
...no man of genuinely superior intelligence has ever been an actor. Even supposing a young man of appreciable mental powers to be… — H. L. Mencken Actor Copy Share Image
The most costly of all follies is to believe passionately in the palpably not true. It is the chief occupation of mankind. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
The chief knowledge that's man on from reading books is the knowledge that very few of them are worth reading. — H. L. Mencken Book Copy Share Image
Platitude: an idea (a) that is admitted to be true by everyone, and (b) that is not true. — H. L. Mencken Idea Copy Share Image
Whenever A annoys or injures B on the pretense of saving or improving X, A is a scoundrel. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
Every man sees in his relatives, and especially in his cousins, a series of grotesque caricatures of himself. — H. L. Mencken Caricatures Copy Share Image
The notion that anything is gained by fixing a language in a groove is cherished only by pedants. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
The best years are the forties; after fifty a man begins to deteriorate, but in the forties he is at the maximum… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
In the United States, doing good has come to be, like patriotism, a favorite device of persons with something to sell. — H. L. Mencken Cynical Copy Share Image
Women have simple tastes. They get pleasure out of the conversation of children in arms and men in love. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
I have little belief in human progress. The human race is incurably idiotic. It will never be happy. — H. L. Mencken Belief Copy Share Image
A politician is an animal which can sit on a fence and yet keep both ears to the ground. — H. L. Mencken Animal Copy Share Image
The best teacher of children, in brief, is one who is essentially childlike. — H. L. Mencken Best teacher Copy Share Image
Those who can't teach - administrate. Those who can't administrate - go into politics. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
The objection of the scandalmonger is not that she tells of racy doings, but that she pretends to be indignant about them. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
To be in love is merely to be in a state of perceptual anesthesia - to mistake an ordinary young woman for… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
There is always a sheet of paper. There is always a pen. There is always a way out. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
![“[Texas is] the place where there are the most cows and the least milk and the most rivers and the least water in them, and where you can look the farthest to see the least.” quote by H. L. Mencken](https://sms4smile.com/q/img-quotes/4ef/h-l-mencken-245_cows_texas-is-the-place-where-there-are-the-m_1848045.png)
![“[T]he only thing wrong with Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address was that it was the South, not the North, that was fighting for a government of the people, by the people and for the people.” quote by H. L. Mencken](https://sms4smile.com/q/img-quotes/b4e/h-l-mencken-245_abraham_t-he-only-thing-wrong-with-abraham-linco_1672393.png)
![“By profession a biologist, [Thomas Henry Huxley] covered in fact the whole field of the exact sciences, and then bulged through its four fences. Absolutely nothing was uninteresting to him. His curiosity ranged from music to theology and from philosophy to history. He didn't simply know something…” quote by H. L. Mencken](https://sms4smile.com/q/img-quotes/f46/h-l-mencken-245_absolutely-nothing_by-profession-a-biologist-thomas-henry-h_5368.jpg)
