Governments, whatever their pretensions otherwise, try to preserve themselves by holding the individual down ... Government itself, indeed, may be reasonably defined… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
It seems to me that society usually wins. There are, to be sure, free spirits in the world, but their freedom, in… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
Why assume so glibly that the God who presumably created the universe is still running it? It is certainly conceivable that He… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
Here is tragedy - and here is America. For the curse of the country, as well of all democracies, is precisely the… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
War may make a fool of man, but it by no means degrades him; on the contrary, it tends to exalt him,… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
No man ever quite believes in any other man. One may believe in an idea absolutely, but not in a man. In… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
The essence of science is that it is always willing to abandon a given idea, however fundamental it may seem to be,… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
[A formula for answering controversial letters -- without even reading the letters:] Dear Sir (or Madame): You may be right. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
There is a saying in Baltimore that crabs may be prepared in fifty ways and that all of them are good. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
The fact that a human brain of high amperage, otherwise highly efficient, may have a hole in it is surely not a… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
Women have a hard time of it in this world. They are oppressed by man-made laws, man-made social customs, masculine egoism, the… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
Not by accident, you may be sure, do the Christian Scriptures make the father of knowledge a serpent - slimy, sneaking and… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
Two simple principles lie at the bottom of the whole matter, and they may be precipitated into two rules. The first is… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
A sound American is simply one who has put out of his mind all doubts and questionings, and who accepts instantly, and… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
No matter how happily a woman may be married, it always pleases her to discover that there is a nice man who… — 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…” 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)
