If a sense of duty tortures a man, it also enables him to achieve prodigies. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
There's really no point to voting. If it made any difference, it would probably be illegal. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
If I ever mary, it will be on a suddn impulse - as aman shoots himself — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
Always remember this: If you don't attend the funerals of your friends, they will certainly not attend yours. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
There are some politicians who, if their constituents were cannibals, would promise them missionaries in every pot. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
If what I may believe - about gall-stones, the Constitution, castor oil, or God - is conditioned by law, then I am… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
If all the lawyers were hanged tomorrow, and their bones were sold to a mah jong factory, we'd all be freer and… — H. L. Mencken 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 Copy Share Image
A man is called a good fellow for doing things which, if done by a woman, would land her in a lunatic… — 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 Copy Share Image
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 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
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
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
Government, in its very essence, is opposed to all increase in knowledge. Its tendency is always towards permanence and against change...[T]he progress… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
There is no possibility whatsoever of reconciling science and theology, at least in Christendom. Either Jesus arose from the dead or He… — H. L. Mencken 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 Copy Share Image
At the end of one millennium and nine centuries of Christianity, it remains an unshakable assumption of the law in all Christian… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
[Referring to FDR] If he became convinced tomorrow that coming out for cannibalism would get him the votes he needs so sorely,… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
To be happy one must be (a) well fed, unhounded by sordid cares, at ease in Zion, (b) full of a comfortable… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
The so-called Philosophy of India is even more blowsy and senseless than the metaphysics of the West. It is at war with… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
What is any political campaign save a concerted effort to turn out a set of politicians who are admittedly bad and put… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
I hope I need not confess that a large part of my stock in trade consists of platitudes rescued from the cobwebbed… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
Communism, like any other revealed religion, is largely made up of prophecies. When they fail to come off its clergy simply say… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
I believe in only one thing and that thing is human liberty. If ever a man is to achieve anything like dignity,… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
It is often argued that religion is valuable because it makes men good, but even if this were true it would not… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
This passion, so unordered and yet so potent, explains the capacity for teaching that one frequently observes in scientific men of high… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
If experience teaches us anything at all, it teaches us this: that a good politician, under democracy, is quite as unthinkable as… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
If I had my way, any man guilty of golf would be ineligible for any office of trust in the United States. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
If there were only three women left in the world, two of them would immediately convene a court-martial to try the other… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
If x is the population of the United States and y is the degree of imbecility of the average American, then democracy… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
But I wonder where we will land if trial judges begin deciding that the fact that a man has committed an atrocious… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
If there had been any formidable body of cannibals in the country, Harry Truman would have promised to provide them with free… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
Bridges would not be safer if only people who knew the proper definition of a real number were allowed to design them. — 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 Copy Share Image
As if paralyzed by the national fear of ideas, the democratic distrust of whatever strikes beneath the prevailing platitudes, it evades all… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
If the American people really tire of democracy and want to make a trial of Fascism, I shall be the last person… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
What I got in Sunday school ... was simply a firm conviction that the Christian faith was full of palpable absurdities, and… — 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
![“Government, in its very essence, is opposed to all increase in knowledge. Its tendency is always towards permanence and against change...[T]he progress of humanity, far from being the result of government, has been made entirely without its aid and in the face if its constant and bitter opposition.” quote by H. L. Mencken](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/f1e/h-l-mencken-245_aids_government-in-its-very-essence-is-oppose_2900850.jpg)
![“[Referring to FDR] If he became convinced tomorrow that coming out for cannibalism would get him the votes he needs so sorely, he would begin fattening a missionary in the White House yard come Wednesday.” quote by H. L. Mencken](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/d3e/h-l-mencken-245_cannibalism_referring-to-fdr-if-he-became-convinced_2220772.jpg)
![“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)
