You can't do anything about the length of your life, but you can do something about its width and depth. — H. L. Mencken Depth Copy Share Image
Men become civilized, not in proportion to their willingness to believe, but in their readiness to doubt. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
Philosophy, as the modern world knows it, is only intellectual club-swinging. — H. L. Mencken Clubs Copy Share Image
The chief business of the nation, as a nation, is the setting up of heroes, mainly bogus. — H. L. Mencken Bogus Copy Share Image
The pedant and the priest have always been the most expert of logicians -- and the most diligent disseminators of nonsense and… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
We must be prepared to pay a price for freedom, for no price that is ever asked for it is half the… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
The State doesn't just want you to obey, it wants to make you WANT to obey. — H. L. Mencken Inspirational Copy Share Image
The capacity of human beings to bore one another seems to be vastly greater than that of any other animal. — H. L. Mencken Animal Copy Share Image
The aim of New Deals is to exterminate the class of creditors and thrust all men into that of debtors. It is… — 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… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
To the man with an ear for verbal delicacies- the man who searches painfully for the perfect word, and puts the way… — H. L. Mencken Accidents Copy Share Image
Most people are unable to write because they are unable to think, and they are unable to think because they congenitally lack… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
No man ever quite believes in any other man. One may believe in an idea absolutely, but not in a man. In… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
The American people, North and South, went into the [Civil] war as citizens of their respective states, they came out as subjects… — H. L. Mencken American people Copy Share Image
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 Existence Copy Share Image
One of the things that makes a Negro unpleasant to white folk is the fact that he suffers from their injustice. He… — H. L. Mencken Diversity Copy Share Image
Two simple principles lie at the bottom of the whole matter, and they may be precipitated into two rules. The first is… — H. L. Mencken Beginners Copy Share Image
I know of no human being who has a better time than an eager and energetic young reporter. — H. L. Mencken Energetic Copy Share Image
The truly civilized man is always skeptical and tolerant, in this field as in all others. His culture is based on 'I… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
If I had my way, any man guilty of golf would be ineligible for any office of trust in the United States. — H. L. Mencken Golf Copy Share Image
Every failure teaches a man something, to wit, that he will probably fail again. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
Congress consists of one-third, more or less, scoundrels; two-thirds, more or less, idiots; and three-thirds, more or less, poltroons. — H. L. Mencken Congress Copy Share Image
The value the world sets upon motives is often grossly unjust and inaccurate. — H. L. Mencken Motive 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 Inspirational Copy Share Image
The music critic, Huneber, could never quite make up his mind about a new symphony until he had seen the composer's mistress. — H. L. Mencken Composer Copy Share Image
The American people, I am convinced, really detest free speech. At the slightest alarm they are ready and eager to put it… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
Sunday is a day given over by Americans to wishing that the themselves were dead and in Heaven, and that their neighbors… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
There is always a well-known solution to every human problem - neat, plausible, and wrong. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
If a politician found he had cannibals among his constituents, he would promise them missionaries for dinner. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
The cosmos is a gigantic flywheel making 10,000 revolutions per minute. Man is a sick fly taking a dizzy ride on it. — H. L. Mencken Astronomy Copy Share Image
In Baltimore, soft crabs are always fried (or broiled) in the altogether, with maybe a small jock-strap of bacon added. — H. L. Mencken Baltimore Copy Share Image
A man who knows a subject thoroughly, a man so soaked in it that he eats it, sleeps it and dreams it-… — H. L. Mencken Dream Copy Share Image
[T]here is only one sound argument for democracy, and that is the argument that it is a crime for any man to… — H. L. Mencken Argument Copy Share Image
[Referring to FDR] If he became convinced tomorrow that coming out for cannibalism would get him the votes he needs so sorely,… — H. L. Mencken Cannibalism Copy Share Image
The mistake that is made always runs the other way. Because the plain people are able to speak and understand, and even,… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
The ideal Government of all reflective men, from Aristotle onward, is one which lets the individual alone - one which barely escapes… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
This combat between proletariat and plutocracy is, after all, itself a civil war. Two inferiorities struggle for the privilege of polluting the… — H. L. Mencken Civil war Copy Share Image
Lying is not only excusable; it is not only innocent; it is, above all, necessary and unavoidable. Without the ameliorations that it… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
The State is not force alone. It depends upon the credulity of man quite as much as upon his docility. Its aim… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
The one permanent emotion of the inferior man is fear - fear of the unknown, the complex, the inexplicable. What he wants… — H. L. Mencken Emotion Copy Share Image
![“The American people, North and South, went into the [Civil] war as citizens of their respective states, they came out as subjects ... what they thus lost they have never got back.” quote by H. L. Mencken](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/2a3/h-l-mencken-245_american-people_the-american-people-north-and-south-went_2057722.png)
![“[T]here is only one sound argument for democracy, and that is the argument that it is a crime for any man to hold himself out as better than other men, and, above all, a most heinous offense for him to prove it.” quote by H. L. Mencken](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/43b/h-l-mencken-245_argument_t-here-is-only-one-sound-argument-for-de_1268457.png)
![“[Referring to FDR] If he became convinced tomorrow that coming out for cannibalism would get him the votes he needs so sorely, he would begin fattening a missionary in the White House yard come Wednesday.” quote by H. L. Mencken](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/d3e/h-l-mencken-245_cannibalism_referring-to-fdr-if-he-became-convinced_2220772.png)
