So few men are really worth knowing, that it seems a shameful waste to let an anthropoid prejudice stand in the way… — 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
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
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
Whenever I write anything that sets up controversy its meaning is distorted almost instantly. Even the editorial writers of newspapers seem to… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
Setting aside the vast herd which shows no definable character at all, it seems to me that the minority distinguished by what… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
Of all forms of visible otherworldliness, it seems to me, the Gothic is at once the most logical and the most beautiful.… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
A free citizen in a free state, it seems to me, has an inalienable right to play with whomsoever he will, so… — 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
Next to the semi-colon, quotation marks seem to be the chief butts of reformatory ardor. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
The chief difference between free capitalism and State socialism seems to be this: that under the former a man pursues his own… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
Of all the human qualities, the one I admire the most is competence. A tailor who is really able to cut and… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
It seems to me that you are better off, as a writer and as an American, in a small town than you'd… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
Kant was probably the worst writer ever heard of on earth before Karl Marx. Some of his ideas were really quite simple,… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
What are the hallmarks of a competent writer of fiction? The first, it seems to me, is that he should be immensely… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
I have long been convinced that the idea of liberty is abhorrent to most human beings. What they want is security, not… — 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
As for me, my literary theory, like my politics, is based chiefly upon one main idea, to wit, the idea of freedom.… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
The capacity of human beings to bore one another seems to be vastly greater than that of any other animal. Some of… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
I am one of the few goyim who have ever actually tackled the Talmud. I suppose you now expect me to add… — 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
Women in general seem to me to be appreciably more intelligent than men. A great many of them suffer in silence from… — 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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