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States Quotes by H. L. Mencken

35 States quotes by H. L. Mencken

All States quotes H. L. Mencken’s page

Stepping into Mencken’s take on States, you’ll find a blend of sarcasm and insight that cuts to the heart of political life. His 35 remarks sketch a portrait of governance that’s both biting and oddly human, offering a quick, thought‑provoking glimpse into his skeptical view.

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If I had my way, any man guilty of golf would be ineligible for any office of trust in the United States.

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The State doesn't just want you to obey, it wants to make you WANT to obey.

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The real charm of the United States is that it is the only comic country ever heard of.

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The ideal state for a philosopher, indeed, is celibacy tempered by polygamy.

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The state remains, as it was in the beginning, the common enemy of all well-disposed, industrious and decent men.

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The common notion that free speech prevails in the United States always makes me laugh.

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What fetched me instantly (and thousands of other newcomers with me) was the subtle but unmistakable sense of escape from the United…

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The average man gets his living by such depressing devices that boredom becomes a sort of natural state to him.

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There is nothing worse than an idle hour, with no occupation offering. People who have many such hours are simply animals waiting…

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Of government, at least in democratic states, it may be said briefly that it is an agency engaged wholesale, and as a…

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The course of the United States in World War II, I said, was dishonest, dishonorable, and ignominious, and the Sunpapers, by supporting…

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If I had my way, any man guilty of golf would be barred from any public office in the United States and…

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A Galileo could no more be elected president of the United States than he could be elected Pope of Rome. Both high…

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The argument that capital punishment degrades the state is moonshine, for if that were true then it would degrade the state to…

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It is not a sign of communal well-being when men turn to their government to execute all their business for them, but…

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The State is not force alone. It depends upon the credulity of man quite as much as upon his docility. Its aim…

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All that the Y.M.C.A.'s horse and rings really accomplished was to fill me with an ineradicable distaste, not only for Christian endeavor…

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The main thing that every political campaign in the United States demonstrates is that the politicians of all parties, despite their superficial…

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It [the State] has taken on a vast mass of new duties and responsibilities; it has spread out its powers until they…

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The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all; it is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible…

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To be happy one must be (a) well fed, unhounded by sordid cares, at ease in Zion, (b) full of a comfortable…

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In the United States...politics is purged of all menace, all sinister quality, all genuine significance, and stuffed with such gorgeous humors, such…

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The storm center of lawlessness in every American State is the State Capitol. It is there that the worst crimes are committed;…

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Every lynching deprives its victim of his life without due process of law, and denies him an equal protection of the law.…

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In the United States, doing good has come to be, like patriotism, a favorite device of persons with something to sell.

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The American people, North and South, went into the [Civil] war as citizens of their respective states, they came out as subjects…

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If x is the population of the United States and y is the degree of imbecility of the average American, then democracy…

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All [zoos] actually offer to the public in return for the taxes spent upon them is a form of idle and witless…

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No healthy man, in his secret heart, is content with his destiny. He is tortured by dreams and images as a child…

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The chief difference between free capitalism and State socialism seems to be this: that under the former a man pursues his own…

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Some time ago a publisher told me that there are four kinds of books that seldom, if ever, lose money in the…

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

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A free citizen in a free state, it seems to me, has an inalienable right to play with whomsoever he will, so…

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A mood of constructive criticism being upon me, I propose forthwith that the method of choosing legislators now prevailing in the United…

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The taboos that I have mentioned are extraordinarily harsh and numerous. They stand around nearly every subject that is genuinely important to…

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More by H. L. Mencken

Alimony - the ransom that the happy pay to the devil.

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A bad artist almost always tries to conceal his incompetence by whooping up a new formula.

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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.…

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So few men are really worth knowing, that it seems a shameful waste to let an anthropoid prejudice stand in the way of free…

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Man's objection to love is that it dies hard; woman's, that when it is dead, it stays dead.

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The lunatic fringe wags the underdog.

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For it is an absurdity to call a country civilized in which a decent and industrious man, laboriously mastering a trade which is valuble…

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Women have simple tastes. They get pleasure out of the conversation of children in arms and men in love.

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The critic, to interpret his artist, even to understand his artist, must be able to get into the mind of his artist; he must…

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

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Don't overestimate the decency of the human race.

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Liberty ... was a two-headed boon. There was first, the liberty of the people as a whole to determine the forms of their own…

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To the extent that I am genuinely educated, I am suspicious of all the things that the average citizen believes and the average pedagogue…

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Philosophy first constructs a scheme of happiness and then tries to fit the world to it.

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For it is the natural tendency of the ignorant to believe what is not true. In order to overcome that tendency it is not…

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