Hanging one scoundrel, it appears, does not deter the next. Well, what of it? The first one is at least disposed of. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
One does not arise from such a book as Sister Carrie with a smirk of satisfaction; one leaves it infinitely touched. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
The average man does not get pleasure out of an idea because he thinks it is true; he thinks it is true… — H. L. Mencken 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
The true aim of medicine is not to make men virtuous; it is to safeguard and rescue them from the consequences of… — H. L. Mencken 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
The acting that one sees upon the stage does not show how human beings comport themselves in crises, but how actors think… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
The chief difference between free capitalism and State socialism seems to be this: that under the former a man pursues his own… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
Hygiene is the corruption of medicine by morality. It is impossible to find a hygienist who does not debase his theory of… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
As for Lindbergh, another eminent servant of science, all he proved by his gaudy flight across the Atlantic was that God takes… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
Has the art of politics no apparent utility? Does it appear to be unqualifiedly ratty, raffish, sordid, obscene, and low down, andits… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
A free citizen in a free state, it seems to me, has an inalienable right to play with whomsoever he will, so… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
And what is a good citizen? Simply one who never says, does or thinks anything that is unusual. Schools are maintained in… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
Even a superstitious man has certain inalienable rights: the right to harbor and indulge his imbecilities, provided only that he does not… — 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
When a candidate for public office faces the voters he does not face men of sense; he faces a mob of men… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
The notion that science does not concern itself with first causes - that it leaves the field to theology or metaphysics, and… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all; it is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
A bad artist almost always tries to conceal his incompetence by whooping up a new formula. — 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 four fences.… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
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 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 Copy Share Image
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 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
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 Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
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 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 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/quotes/img-quotes/f46/h-l-mencken-245_absolutely-nothing_by-profession-a-biologist-thomas-henry-h_5368.jpg)
