A nun, at best, is only half a woman, just as a priest is only half a man. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
Better than the rest of us, they [the Jews] sensed what was ahead for their people. — H. L. Mencken Israel Copy Share Image
Archbishop - A Christian ecclesiastic of a rank superior to that attained by Christ. — H. L. Mencken Archbishop 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 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
Why assume so glibly that the God who presumably created the universe is still running it? It is certainly conceivable that He… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
On the one hand, we may tell the truth, regardless of consequences, and on the other hand we may mellow it and… — H. L. Mencken Consequence Copy Share Image
The Old Testament, as everyone who has looked into it is aware, drips with blood; there is, indeed, no more bloody chronicle… — H. L. Mencken Bible Copy Share Image
The editors are committed to nothing save this: to keep common sense as fast as they can, to belabor sham as agreeably… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
Suppose two-thirds of the members of the national House of Representatives were dumped into the Washington garbage incinerator tomorrow, what would we… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
Happiness is peace after strife, the overcoming of difficulties, the feeling of security and well-being. The only really happy folk are married… — H. L. Mencken Cybersecurity Copy Share Image
Once a woman passes a certain point in intelligence she finds it almost impossible to get a husband: she simply cannot go… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
The scientist who yields anything to theology, however slight, is yielding to ignorance and false pretenses, and as certainly as if he… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
Here is one of the fundamental defects of American fiction--perhaps the one character that sets it off sharply from all other known… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
[Thomas Henry] Huxley, I believe, was the greatest Englishman of the Nineteenth Century—perhaps the greatest Englishman of all time. When one thinks… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
It is the invariable habit of bureaucracies, at all times and everywhere, to assume...that every citizen is a criminal. Their one apparent… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
I believe there is a limit beyond which free speech cannot go, but it's a limit that's very seldom mentioned. It's the… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
The fact is that liberty, in any true sense, is a concept that lies quite beyond the reach of the inferior man's… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
Science is unflinchingly deterministic, and it has begun to force its determinism into morals. On some shining tomorrow a psychoanalyst may be… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
Man is never honestly the fatalist, nor even the stoic. He fights his fate, often desperately. He is forever entering bold exceptions… — H. L. Mencken Beauty Copy Share Image
The federal [bank deposit] insurance scheme has worked up to now simply and solely because there have been very few bank failures.… — H. L. Mencken Banking 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
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
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
It is impossible to believe that the same God who permitted His own son to die a bachelor regards celibacy as an… — H. L. Mencken Bachelors Copy Share Image
Progress: The process whereby the human race has got rid of whiskers, the vermiform appendix, and God. — H. L. Mencken Appendix Copy Share Image
Whenever "A" attempts by law to impose his moral standards upon "B," "A" is most likely a scoundrel. — H. L. Mencken Character Copy Share Image
The curse of man, and the cause of nearly all his woe, is his stupendous capacity for believing the incredible. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
The townspeople are morons, yokels, peasants and genus homo boobiensis...surrounded by gaping primates from the upland vallies. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
The artist is not a reporter, but a Great Teacher. It is not his business to depict the world as it is,… — H. L. Mencken Art Copy Share Image
Chopin--Two embalmers at work upon a minor poetthe scent of tuberosesAutumn rain. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
If there were only three women left in the world, two of them would immediately convene a court-martial to try the other… — H. L. Mencken Court Copy Share Image
Democracy is also a form of worship. It is the worship of Jackals by Jackasses. — H. L. Mencken Democracy Copy Share Image
![“Better than the rest of us, they [the Jews] sensed what was ahead for their people.” quote by H. L. Mencken](https://sms4smile.com/q/img-quotes/159/h-l-mencken-245_israel_better-than-the-rest-of-us-they-the-jews_3199611.png)
![“[Thomas Henry] Huxley, I believe, was the greatest Englishman of the Nineteenth Century—perhaps the greatest Englishman of all time. When one thinks of him, one thinks inevitably of such men as Goethe and Aristotle. For in him there was that rich, incomparable blend of intelligence and character…” quote by H. L. Mencken](https://sms4smile.com/q/img-quotes/371/h-l-mencken-245_all-time_thomas-henry-huxley-i-believe-was-the-gr_3218889.png)
![“The federal [bank deposit] insurance scheme has worked up to now simply and solely because there have been very few bank failures. The next time we have a pestilence of them it will come to grief quickly enough, and if the good banks escape ruin with the bad ones it will be only because the…” quote by H. L. Mencken](https://sms4smile.com/q/img-quotes/2db/h-l-mencken-245_banking_the-federal-bank-deposit-insurance-schem_1553577.png)
