Poverty is a soft pedal upon the branches of human activity, not excepting the spiritual. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
The ideal state for a philosopher, indeed, is celibacy tempered by polygamy. — H. L. Mencken Celibacy Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
Unsuccessful candidates for the Presidency should be quietly hanged as a matter of public sanitation and decorum. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
Women hate revolutions and revolutionists. They like men who are docile, and well-regarded at the bank, and never late at meals. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
Immortality is the condition of a dead man who doesn't believe he is dead — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
Culture itself is neither education nor law-making: it is an atmosphere and a heritage. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
The function of a newspaper in a democracy is to stand as a sort of chronic opposition to the reigning quacks. The… — H. L. Mencken Character Copy Share Image
[Government] is apprehended, not as a committee of citizens chosen to carry on the communal business of the whole population, but as… — H. L. Mencken Autonomous Copy Share Image
The argument that capital punishment degrades the state is moonshine, for if that were true then it would degrade the state to… — H. L. Mencken Argument Copy Share Image
New York is the place where all the aspirations of the western world meet to form one vast master aspiration, as powerful… — H. L. Mencken Aspiration Copy Share Image
The effect of every sort of New Deal is to increase and prosper the criminal class. It teaches precisely what all professional… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
The true bureaucrat is a man of really remarkable talents. He writes a kind of English that is unknown elsewhere in the… — H. L. Mencken Bureaucrat Copy Share Image
The only guarantee of the Bill of Rights which continues to have any force and effect is the one prohibiting quartering troops… — H. L. Mencken Bill of rights Copy Share Image
No reporter of my generation, whatever his genius, ever really rated spats and a walking stick until he had covered both a… — 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
By profession a biologist, [Thomas Henry Huxley] covered in fact the whole field of the exact sciences, and then bulged through its… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
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… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
A metaphysician is one who, when you remark that twice two makes four, demands to know what you mean by twice, what… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
Every step in human progress, from the first feeble stirrings in the abyss of time, has been opposed by the great majority… — H. L. Mencken Abyss Copy Share Image
It is difficult to imagine anyone having any real hopes for the human race in the face of the fact that the… — H. L. Mencken Atheism Copy Share Image
The government consists of a gang of men exactly like you and me. They have, taking one with another, no special talent… — H. L. Mencken Auctions Copy Share Image
It was morality that burned the books of the ancient sages, and morality that halted the free inquiry of the Golden Age… — H. L. Mencken Age Copy Share Image
When I reach the shades at last it will no doubt astonish Satan to discover, on thumbing my dossier, that I was… — H. L. Mencken Death Copy Share Image
Any defeat, however trivial, may be fatal to a savior of the plain people. They never admire a messiah with a bloody… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
There are some politicians who, if their constituents were cannibals, would promise them missionaries in every pot. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
The penalty for laughing in a courtroom is six months in jail; if it were not for this penalty, the jury would… — H. L. Mencken Comedy Copy Share Image
The chief contribution of Protestantism to human thought is its massive proof that God is a bore. — H. L. Mencken Contribution Copy Share Image
The only way that a government can provide for jobs for all citizens is by deciding what every man should do. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
All I ask is equal freedom. When it is denied, as it always is, I take it anyhow. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
The war on privilege will never end. Its next great campaign will be against the privileges of the underprivileged. — H. L. Mencken Campaigns Copy Share Image
All the great villainies of history, from the murder of Abel onward, have been perpetrated by sober men, chiefly by Teetotalers. — H. L. Mencken Abel Copy Share Image
What ails the truth is that it is mainly uncomfortable, and often dull. The human mind seeks something more amusing, and more… — H. L. Mencken Amusing Copy Share Image
A man always remembers his first love with special tenderness, but after that he begins to bunch them. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
When you sympathize with a married woman you either make two enemies or gain one wife and one friend. — H. L. Mencken Enemy Copy Share Image
A great literature is thus chiefly the product of doubting and inquiring minds in revolt against the immovable certainties of the nation. — H. L. Mencken Books Copy Share Image
I believe in only one thing: liberty; but I do not believe in liberty enough to want to force it upon anyone. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
The great artists of the world are never Puritans, and seldom even ordinarily respectable. — H. L. Mencken Art Copy Share Image
The only good bureaucrat is one with a pistol at his head. Put it in his hand and it's good-bye to the… — H. L. Mencken Bill of rights Copy Share Image
![“[Government] is apprehended, not as a committee of citizens chosen to carry on the communal business of the whole population, but as a separate and autonomous corporation, mainly devoted to exploiting the population for the benefit of its own members.” quote by H. L. Mencken](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/0ec/h-l-mencken-245_autonomous_government-is-apprehended-not-as-a-commi_1115230.jpg)
![“By profession a biologist, [Thomas Henry Huxley] covered in fact the whole field of the exact sciences, and then bulged through its four fences. Absolutely nothing was uninteresting to him. His curiosity ranged from music to theology and from philosophy to history. He didn't simply know something…” quote by H. L. Mencken](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/f46/h-l-mencken-245_absolutely-nothing_by-profession-a-biologist-thomas-henry-h_5368.jpg)
