If I had my way, any man guilty of golf would be barred from any public office in the United States and… — H. L. Mencken Argentina Copy Share Image
The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out... without regard to the prevailing… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
A Progressive is one who is in favor of more taxes instead of less, more bureaus and jobholders, more paternalism and meddling,… — H. L. Mencken Affair Copy Share Image
We have had more brilliant Presidents than Cleveland, and one or two who were considerably more profound, but we have never had… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
The effort to reconcile science and religion is almost always made, not by theologians, but by scientists unable to shake off altogether… — H. L. Mencken Effort Copy Share Image
The average schoolmaster is and always must be essentially an ass, for how can one imagine an intelligent man engaging in so… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
A Galileo could no more be elected president of the United States than he could be elected Pope of Rome. Both high… — H. L. Mencken Agnostic Copy Share Image
The average man's love of liberty is nine-tenths imaginary, exactly like his love of sense, justice and truth... It takes a special… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
To the extent that I am genuinely educated, I am suspicious of all the things that the average citizen believes and the… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
The net effect of Clarence Darrow's great speech yesterday seemed to be precisely the same as if he had bawled it up… — H. L. Mencken Afghanistan Copy Share Image
Happiness, like health, is probably also only a passing accident. For a moment or two the organism is irritated so little that… — H. L. Mencken Accidents Copy Share Image
I believe that any man who takes the liberty of another into his keeping is bound to become a tyrant, and that… — 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
I think the Negro people should feel secure enough by now to face a reasonable ridicule without terror. I am unalterably opposed… — H. L. Mencken Communication Copy Share Image
It is Hell, of course, that makes priests powerful, not Heaven, for after thousands of years of so-called civilization fear remains the… — H. L. Mencken Civilization Copy Share Image
A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin or when he sees silver he looks… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
What I admire most in any man is a serene spirit, a steady freedom from moral indignation, and all-embracing tolerance--in brief,what is… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
Citizenship in New York is now worth no more than citizenship in Arkansas, for it is open to any applicant from the… — H. L. Mencken Arkansas Copy Share Image
Those tragic comedians, the Chamber of Commerce red hunters, the Women's Christian Temperance Union smellers, the censors of books, the Klan regulators,… — H. L. Mencken America Copy Share Image
The effect of every sort of New Deal is to increase and prosper the criminal class. It teaches precisely what all professional… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
New York is the place where all the aspirations of the western world meet to form one vast master aspiration, as powerful… — H. L. Mencken Aspiration Copy Share Image
The argument that capital punishment degrades the state is moonshine, for if that were true then it would degrade the state to… — H. L. Mencken Argument Copy Share Image
The truth, indeed, is something that mankind, for some mysterious reason, instinctively dislikes. Every man who tries to tell it is unpopular,… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
Shave a gorilla and it would be almost impossible, at twenty paces, to distinguish him from a heavyweight champion of the world.… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
No reporter of my generation, whatever his genius, ever really rated spats and a walking stick until he had covered both a… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
The plain people, hereafter as in the past, will continue to make their own language, and the best that grammarians can do… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
The only guarantee of the Bill of Rights which continues to have any force and effect is the one prohibiting quartering troops… — H. L. Mencken Bill of rights Copy Share Image
The true bureaucrat is a man of really remarkable talents. He writes a kind of English that is unknown elsewhere in the… — H. L. Mencken Bureaucrat Copy Share Image
The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
The most disgusting cad in the world is the man who on the grounds of decorum and morality avoids the game of… — H. L. Mencken Cad Copy Share Image
A woman usually respects her father, but her view of her husband is mingled with contempt, for she is of course privy… — H. L. Mencken Contempt Copy Share Image
If the average man is made in God's image, then a man such as Beethoven or Aristotle is plainly superior to God,… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
All human progress, even in morals, has been the work of men who have doubted the current moral values, not of men… — H. L. Mencken Character Copy Share Image
It is not a sign of communal well-being when men turn to their government to execute all their business for them, but… — H. L. Mencken Affair Copy Share Image
No married woman ever trusts her husband absolutely, nor does she ever act as if she did trust him. Her utmost confidence… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
No professional politician is ever actually in favor of public economy. It is his implacable enemy, and he knows it. All professional… — H. L. Mencken Corruption Copy Share Image
The feelings that Beethoven put into his music were the feelings of a god. There was something olympian in his snarls and… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
[Government] is apprehended, not as a committee of citizens chosen to carry on the communal business of the whole population, but as… — H. L. Mencken Autonomous Copy Share Image
The function of a newspaper in a democracy is to stand as a sort of chronic opposition to the reigning quacks. The… — H. L. Mencken Character Copy Share Image
The psychologists and the metaphysicians wrangle endlessly over the nature of the thinking process in man, but no matter how violently they… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
![“[Government] is apprehended, not as a committee of citizens chosen to carry on the communal business of the whole population, but as a separate and autonomous corporation, mainly devoted to exploiting the population for the benefit of its own members.” quote by H. L. Mencken](https://sms4smile.com/q/img-quotes/0ec/h-l-mencken-245_autonomous_government-is-apprehended-not-as-a-commi_1115230.jpg)
