Religion Quotes by H. L. Mencken

There is only one justification for having sinned, and that is to be glad of it.

— H. L. Mencken

A Puritan is someone who is desperately afraid that, somewhere, someone might be having a good time.

— H. L. Mencken

The motive of fear is the be-all and end-all of religion.

— H. L. Mencken

A man full of faith is simply one who has lost the capacity for clear and realistic thought.

— H. L. Mencken

Religion is "so absurd that it comes close to imbecility."

— H. L. Mencken

Religion, after all, is nothing but an hypothesis framed to account for what is evidentially unaccounted for.

— H. L. Mencken

There is something even more valuable to civilization than wisdom, and that is character.

— H. L. Mencken

Christian - One who is willing to serve three Gods, but draws the line at one wife.

— H. L. Mencken

Morality is doing what is right, no matter what you are told. Religion is doing what you are told, no matter what…

— H. L. Mencken

The so-called religious organizations which now lead the war against the teaching of evolution are nothing more, at bottom, than conspiracies of…

— H. L. Mencken

No one ever heard of the truth being enforced by law. When the secular is called in to sustain an idea, whether…

— H. L. Mencken

There is, in fact, nothing about religious opinions that entitles them to any more respect than other opinions get. On the contrary,…

— H. L. Mencken

A man who is an agnostic by inheritance, so that he doesn't remember any time that he wasn't, has almost no hatred…

— H. L. Mencken

The most satisfying and ecstatic faith is almost purely agnostic. It trusts absolutely without professing to know at all.

— H. L. Mencken

The only way to reconcile science and religion is to set up something which is not science and something that is not…

— H. L. Mencken

A church is a place in which gentlemen who have never been to heaven brag about it to persons who will never…

— H. L. Mencken

There are some people who read too much: the bibliobibuli. I know some who are constantly drunk on books, as other men…

— H. L. Mencken

All great religions, in order to escape absurdity, have to admit a dilution of agnosticism. It is only the savage, whether of…

— H. L. Mencken

The Jews fastened their religion upon the Western world, not because it was more reasonable than the religions of their contemporaries -…

— H. L. Mencken

There is, it appears, a conspiracy of scientists afoot. Their purpose is to break down religion, propagate immorality, and so reduce mankind…

— H. L. Mencken

The acting that one sees upon the stage does not show how human beings comport themselves in crises, but how actors think…

— H. L. Mencken

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

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

What I got in Sunday school ... was simply a firm conviction that the Christian faith was full of palpable absurdities, and…

— H. L. Mencken

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

All the political seers and sorcerers seem to be agreed that the coming Presidential campaign will be full of bitterness, and that…

— H. L. Mencken

The time must come inevitably when mankind shall surmount the imbecility of religion, as it has surmounted the imbecility of religion's ally,…

— H. L. Mencken

The most curious social convention of the great age in which we live is the one to the effect that religious opinions…

— H. L. Mencken

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

Communism, like any other revealed religion, is largely made up of prophecies.

— H. L. Mencken

I believe that religion, generally speaking, has been a curse to mankind.

— H. L. Mencken

Poverty is a soft pedal upon the branches of human activity, not excepting the spiritual.

— H. L. Mencken

Religion deserves no more respect than a pile of garbage.

— H. L. Mencken

Religion is a conceited effort to deny the most obvious realities.

— H. L. Mencken

Men become civilized, not in proportion to their willingness to believe, but in their readiness to doubt.

— H. L. Mencken

The effort to reconcile science and religion is almost always made, not by theologians, but by scientists unable to shake off altogether…

— H. L. Mencken