Never let your inferiors do you a favor - it will be extremely costly. — 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 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 Copy Share Image
No government is ever really in favor of so-called civil rights. It always tries to whittle them down. They are preserved under… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
The typical lawmaker of today is a man wholly devoid of principle - a mere counter in a grotesque and knavish game.… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
The two main ideas that run through all of my writing, whether it be literary criticism or political polemic are these: I… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
All American wars (except the Civil War) have been fought with the odds overwhelmingly in favor of the Americans. In the history… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
Liberty is of small value to the lower third of humanity. They greatly prefer security, which means protection by some class above… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
Liberty is not for these slaves; I do not advocate inflicting it against their conscience. On the contrary, I am strongly in… — 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 Copy Share Image
Probably the worst thing that has happened in America in my time is the decay of confidence in the courts. No one… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
Syllogisms а la mode - If you are against labor racketeers, then you are against the working man. If you are against… — 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
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
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
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
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
Women have simple tastes. They get pleasure out of the conversation of children in arms and men in love. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share
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
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
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
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 Copy Share
Philosophy first constructs a scheme of happiness and then tries to fit the world to it. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share
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 Copy Share
