School days, I believe, are the unhappiest in the whole span of human existence. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
What the meaning of human life may be I don't know: I incline to suspect that it has none. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
Whenever "A" attempts by law to impose his moral standards upon "B," "A" is most likely a scoundrel. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
The only way to success in American public life lies in flattering and kowtowing to the mob — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
Watching two women kiss is like watching two prizefighters shake hands. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
“Life is a constant oscillation between the sharp horns of a dilemma.” — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
In every woman's life there is one real and consuming love. But very few women guess which one it is. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
The saddest life is that of a political aspirant under democracy. His failure is ignominious and his success is disgraceful. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
The most valuable of all human possessions, next to a superior and disdainful air, is the reputation of being well-to-do. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
The average man gets his living by such depressing devices that boredom becomes a sort of natural state to him. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
The theatre, when all is said and done, is not life in miniature, but life enormously magnified, life hideously exaggerated. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
It is impossible to think of a man of any actual force and originality, universally recognized as having those qualities, who spent… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
The average man never really thinks from end to end of his life. The mental activity of such people is only a… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
Nine times out of ten, in the arts as in life, there is actually no truth to be discovered; there is only… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
The life of man in this world is like the life of a fly in a room filled with 100 boys, each… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
To large numbers of American citizens life in certain parts of the country becomes intolerably hazardous. They may be seized on any… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
Of all the classes of men, I dislike the most those who make their livings by talking - actors, clergymen, politicians, pedagogues,… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
Life without sex might be safer but it would be unbearably dull. It is the sex instinct which makes women seem beautiful,… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
A living language is like a man suffering incessantly from small hemorrhages, and what it needs above all else is constant transactions… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
I go on working for the same reason that a hen goes on laying eggs. There is in every living creature an… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
No healthy man, in his secret heart, is content with his destiny. He is tortured by dreams and images as a child… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
Human life is basically a comedy. Even its tragedies often seem comic to the spectator, and not infrequently they actually have comic… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
The average man never really thinks from end to end of his life. The mental activity of such people is only a… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
Every lynching deprives its victim of his life without due process of law, and denies him an equal protection of the law.… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
There are two impossibilities in life: "just one drink" and "an honest politician." — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
You can't do anything about the length of your life, but you can do something about its width and depth. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
The basic fact about human existence is not that it is a tragedy, but that it is a bore. It is not… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
What is the function that a clergyman performs in the world? Answer: He gets his living by assuring idiots that he can… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
My guess is that well over eighty per cent. of the human race goes through life without having a single original thought.. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
There is, in fact, no reason to believe that any given natural phenomenon, however marvelous it may seem today, will remain forever… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
Women decide the larger questions of life correctly and quickly, not because they are lucky guessers, not because they are divinely inspired,… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
Good government is that which delivers the citizen from being done out of his life and property too arbitrarily and violently-one that… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
Don't tell me what delusion he entertains regarding God, or what mountebank he follows in politics, or what he springs from, or… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
Lying is not only excusable; it is not only innocent; it is, above all, necessary and unavoidable. Without the ameliorations that it… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
The essence of a sound style is that it cannot be reduced to rules-that it is a living and breathing thing with… — 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
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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. 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)
