Atheism Quotes by H. L. Mencken

24 Atheism quotes by H. L. Mencken

H. L. Mencken’s atheism is laced with scathing social critique and sardonic humor. His reflections, though concise, deliver a powerful, skeptical commentary on religion’s place in society, echoing his broader journalistic ethos.

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Why do men go to zoos?

H. L. Mencken

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Christian endeavor is notoriously hard on female pulchritude.

H. L. Mencken

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The scent of frying astronomers long ago ceased to ascend to Yahweh.

H. L. Mencken

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Religion is "so absurd that it comes close to imbecility."

H. L. Mencken

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Imagine the Creator as a low comedian, and at once the world becomes explicable.

H. L. Mencken

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There comes a time in every man's life when he's consumed by the desire to spit on his palms, hoist the black…

H. L. Mencken

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The difference between the smartest dog and the stupidest man - say a Tennessee Holy Roller - is really very small.

H. L. Mencken

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Not by accident, you may be sure, do the Christian Scriptures make the father of knowledge a serpent - slimy, sneaking and…

H. L. Mencken

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Morality is doing what is right, no matter what you are told. Religion is doing what you are told, no matter what…

H. L. Mencken

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A Puritan is someone who is desperately afraid that, somewhere, someone might be having a good time.

H. L. Mencken

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Well, I tell you, if I have been wrong in my agnosticism, when I die I'll walk up to God in a…

H. L. Mencken

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Whenever a reporter is assigned to cover a Methodist conference, he comes home an atheist.

H. L. Mencken

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It is difficult to imagine anyone having any real hopes for the human race in the face of the fact that the…

H. L. Mencken

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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

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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

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The Jews fastened their religion upon the Western world, not because it was more reasonable than the religions of their contemporaries -…

H. L. Mencken

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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

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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

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All great religions, in order to escape absurdity, have to admit a dilution of agnosticism. It is only the savage, whether of…

H. L. Mencken

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What I got in Sunday school ... was simply a firm conviction that the Christian faith was full of palpable absurdities, and…

H. L. Mencken

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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

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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

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The notion that science does not concern itself with first causes - that it leaves the field to theology or metaphysics, and…

H. L. Mencken

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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

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More by H. L. Mencken

Alimony - the ransom that the happy pay to the devil.

H. L. Mencken

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A bad artist almost always tries to conceal his incompetence by whooping up a new formula.

H. L. Mencken

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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

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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

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Man's objection to love is that it dies hard; woman's, that when it is dead, it stays dead.

H. L. Mencken

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The lunatic fringe wags the underdog.

H. L. Mencken

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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

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Women have simple tastes. They get pleasure out of the conversation of children in arms and men in love.

H. L. Mencken

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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

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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

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Don't overestimate the decency of the human race.

H. L. Mencken

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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

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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

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Philosophy first constructs a scheme of happiness and then tries to fit the world to it.

H. L. Mencken

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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

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