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
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
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
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
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
“Life is a constant oscillation between the sharp horns of a dilemma.” — 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 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 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
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
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
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
Whenever "A" attempts by law to impose his moral standards upon "B," "A" is most likely a scoundrel. — 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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