If a politician found he had cannibals among his constituents, he would promise them missionaries for dinner. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
There is always a well-known solution to every human problem - neat, plausible, and wrong. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
The music critic, Huneber, could never quite make up his mind about a new symphony until he had seen the composer's mistress. — H. L. Mencken Composer Copy Share Image
The American people, I am convinced, really detest free speech. At the slightest alarm they are ready and eager to put it… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
The value the world sets upon motives is often grossly unjust and inaccurate. — H. L. Mencken Motive Copy Share Image
Congress consists of one-third, more or less, scoundrels; two-thirds, more or less, idiots; and three-thirds, more or less, poltroons. — H. L. Mencken Congress Copy Share Image
Every failure teaches a man something, to wit, that he will probably fail again. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
Man's objection to love is that it dies hard; woman's, that when it is dead, it stays dead. — H. L. Mencken Inspirational Copy Share Image
It is surely no mere coincidence that the land of the emancipated and enthroned woman is also the land of canned soup,… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
What we need in this country is a general improvement in eating. We have the best raw materials in the world, both… — H. L. Mencken Country Copy Share Image
There is nothing worse than an idle hour, with no occupation offering. People who have many such hours are simply animals waiting… — H. L. Mencken Animal Copy Share Image
On the one side was bigotry, ignorance, hatred, superstition, every sort of blackness that the human mind is capable of. On the… — H. L. Mencken Bigotry Copy Share Image
Governments, whatever their pretensions otherwise, try to preserve themselves by holding the individual down ... Government itself, indeed, may be reasonably defined… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
The genuine music lover may accept the carnal husk of opera to get at the kernel of actual music within, but that… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
The Christian church, in its attitude toward science, shows the mind of a more or less enlightened man of the Thirteenth Century.… — H. L. Mencken Attitude Copy Share Image
Unionism, seldom if ever, uses such powers as it has to ensure better work; almost always it devotes a large part of… — H. L. Mencken Funny Copy Share Image
It seems to me that you are better off, as a writer and as an American, in a small town than you'd… — H. L. Mencken American writer Copy Share Image
The time must come inevitably when mankind shall surmount the imbecility of religion, as it has surmounted the imbecility of religion's ally,… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
Setting aside the vast herd which shows no definable character at all, it seems to me that the minority distinguished by what… — H. L. Mencken Acquaintance Copy Share Image
The extortions and oppressions of government will go on so long as such bare fraudulence deceives and disarms the victims; so long… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
The highfalutin aims of democracy, whether real or imaginary, are always assumed to be identical with its achievements. This, of course, is… — H. L. Mencken Achievement Copy Share Image
Man is the yokel par excellence, the booby unmatchable, the king dupe of the cosmos. He is chronically and unescapably deceived, not… — H. L. Mencken Animal Copy Share Image
College football is a game which would be much more interesting if the faculty played instead of the students, and even more… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
I have lived in one house in Baltimore for nearly forty-five years. It has changed in that time, as I have -… — H. L. Mencken Baltimore Copy Share Image
A great nation is any mob of people which produces at least one honest man a century. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
It is my conviction that no normal man ever fell in love, within the ordinary meaning of the term, after the age… — H. L. Mencken Faith Copy Share Image
Our literature, despite several false starts that promised much, is chiefly remarkable, now as always, for its respectable mediocrity. — H. L. Mencken American literature Copy Share Image
The Christian always swears a bloody oath that he will never do it again. The civilized man simply resolves to be a… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
Love is an emotion that is based on an opinion of women that is impossible for those who have had any experience… — H. L. Mencken Emotion Copy Share Image
A national political campaign is better than the best circus ever heard of, with a mass baptism and a couple of hangings… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
I am a strict monogamist: it is twenty years since I last went to bed with two women at once, and then… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
Without a doubt there are women who would vote intelligently. There are also men who knit socks beautifully. — H. L. Mencken Doubt Copy Share Image
Psychotherapy is the theory that the patient will probably get well anyhow and is certainly a damn fool. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
War is the only sport which is genuinely amusing. And it is the only sport which has any intelligible use. — H. L. Mencken Amusing Copy Share Image
The learned are seldom pretty fellows, and in many cases their appearance tends to discourage a love of study in the young. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
“Whenever a husband and a wife begin to discuss their marriage they are giving evidence at a coroner's inquest.” — H. L. Mencken Coroner Copy Share Image
The great difficulty about keeping the Ten Commandments is that no man can keep them and be a gentleman. — H. L. Mencken Commandments Copy Share Image
The older I grow the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom. — H. L. Mencken Age Copy Share Image
The university president who cashiered every professor unwilling to support Woodrow Wilson for the first vacancy in the Trinity. . . . — H. L. Mencken Education Copy Share Image
