H.L. Mencken

“Suffice it to say that the vile arts of the hussy prevailed over that noble and upright man—that she enticed him, by…

— H.L. Mencken

“I can't recall a single masculine figure created by a woman who is not, at bottom, a booby.”

— H.L. Mencken

“As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great…

— H.L. Mencken

“If there had been any formidable body of cannibals in the country he [Harry Truman] would have promised to provide them with…

— H.L. Mencken

“I have seen something of the horrors of war, and much too much of the worse horrors of peace.”

— H.L. Mencken

“Don’t tell me. I have been there. No longer ago than last Tuesday—or was it last Monday?—I went into one of those…

— H.L. Mencken

“ONE OF the most irrational of all the conventions of modern society is the one to the effect that religious opinions should…

— H.L. Mencken

“But though every normal man thus cherishes the soothing unction that he is the intellectual superior of all women, and particularly of…

— H.L. Mencken

“If the average man is made in God's image, then a man such as Beethoven or Aristotle is plainly superior to God,…

— H.L. Mencken

“The American moron’s mind simply does not run in that direction; he wants to keep his Ford, even at the cost of…

— H.L. Mencken

“Once I ventured the guess that men worked in response to a vague inner urge for self-expression. But that was probably a…

— H.L. Mencken

“He writes the worst English that I have ever encountered. It reminds me of a string of wet sponges; it reminds me…

— H.L. Mencken

“For men become civilized, not in proportion to their willingness to believe, but in proportion to their readiness to doubt. The more…

— H.L. Mencken

“Where is the graveyard of dead gods? What lingering mourner waters their mounds? There was a time when Jupiter was the king…

— H.L. Mencken

“If I had my way no man guilty of golf would be eligible to any office of trust or profit under the…

— H.L. Mencken

“Socialism, Puritanism, Philistinism, Christianity— he saw them all as allotropic forms of democracy, as variations upon the endless struggle of quantity against…

— H.L. Mencken

“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an…

— H.L. Mencken

“The effort to put down Christian Science by law is one of the craziest enterprises upon which medical men waste their energies.…

— H.L. Mencken

“Before one may scare the plain people one must first have a firm understanding of the bugaboos that most facilely alarm them.…

— H.L. Mencken

“A woman, if she hates her husband (and many of them do), can make life so sour and obnoxious to him that…

— H.L. Mencken

“It seems to be difficult if not impossible for human beings to avoid thinking of government as mystical entity with a nature…

— H.L. Mencken

“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

“Thus she is almost always a failure as a lawyer, for the law requires only an armament of hollow phrases and stereotyped…

— H.L. Mencken

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

— H.L. Mencken

“The value the world sets upon motives is often grossly unjust and inaccurate. Consider, for example, two of them: mere insatiable curiosity…

— H.L. Mencken