American journalism (like the journalism of any other country) is predominantly paltry and worthless. Its pretensions are enormous, but its achievements are… — H. L. Mencken Achievement Copy Share Image
The double standard of morality will survive in this world so long as the woman whose husband has been lured away is… — H. L. Mencken Character Copy Share Image
Strike an average between what a woman thinks of her husband a month before she marries him and what she thinks of… — H. L. Mencken Anniversary Copy Share Image
The more noisy Negro leaders, by depicting all whites as natural and implacable enemies to their race, have done it a great… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
The art of writing, like the art of love, runs all the way from a kind of routine hard to distinguish from… — H. L. Mencken Art Copy Share Image
Nine out of ten Americans are actually monarchists at bottom. The fact is proved by their high suseptibility to political claims by… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
Correct spelling, indeed, is one of the arts that are far more esteemed by schoolma’ams than by practical men, neck-deep in the… — H. L. Mencken Agony Copy Share Image
Of government, at least in democratic states, it may be said briefly that it is an agency engaged wholesale, and as a… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule—and both… — H. L. Mencken Anti war Copy Share Image
As if paralyzed by the national fear of ideas, the democratic distrust of whatever strikes beneath the prevailing platitudes, it evades all… — H. L. Mencken American literature Copy Share Image
[Science] must be amoral by its very nature: The minute it begins separating facts into the two categories of good ones and… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
The essential dilemma of education is to be found in the fact that the sort of man (or woman) who knows a… — H. L. Mencken Dilemma Copy Share Image
Men are the only animals that devote themselves, day in and day out, to making one another unhappy. It is an art… — H. L. Mencken Animal Copy Share Image
I do not believe in democracy, but I am perfectly willing to admit that it provides the only really amusing form of… — H. L. Mencken Amusing Copy Share Image
When I die, I shall be content to vanish into nothingness… No show, however good, could conceivably be good forever I do… — H. L. Mencken Atheist Copy Share Image
The course of the United States in World War II, I said, was dishonest, dishonorable, and ignominious, and the Sunpapers, by supporting… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
What we need in this country is a general improvement in eating. We have the best raw materials in the world, both… — H. L. Mencken Country Copy Share Image
There is nothing worse than an idle hour, with no occupation offering. People who have many such hours are simply animals waiting… — H. L. Mencken Animal Copy Share Image
What chiefly distinguishes the daily press is its incurable fear of ideas, its constant effort to evade the discussion of fundamentals by… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
It is surely no mere coincidence that the land of the emancipated and enthroned woman is also the land of canned soup,… — 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;… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
One of the most mawkish of human delusions is the notion that friendship should be eternal, or, at all events, life-long, and… — H. L. Mencken Delusion Copy Share Image
If all the lawyers were hanged tomorrow, and their bones were sold to a mah jong factory, we'd all be freer and… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
The Christian church, in its attitude toward science, shows the mind of a more or less enlightened man of the Thirteenth Century.… — H. L. Mencken Attitude Copy Share Image
The genuine music lover may accept the carnal husk of opera to get at the kernel of actual music within, but that… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
Unionism, seldom if ever, uses such powers as it has to ensure better work; almost always it devotes a large part of… — H. L. Mencken Funny Copy Share Image
If the American people really tire of democracy and want to make a trial of Fascism, I shall be the last person… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
On the one side was bigotry, ignorance, hatred, superstition, every sort of blackness that the human mind is capable of. On the… — H. L. Mencken Bigotry Copy Share Image
Governments, whatever their pretensions otherwise, try to preserve themselves by holding the individual down ... Government itself, indeed, may be reasonably defined… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
For it is the natural tendency of the ignorant to believe what is not true. In order to overcome that tendency it… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
Happiness, like health, is probably also only a passing accident. For a moment or two the organism is irritated so little that… — H. L. Mencken Accidents Copy Share Image
I believe that any man who takes the liberty of another into his keeping is bound to become a tyrant, and that… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
To the extent that I am genuinely educated, I am suspicious of all the things that the average citizen believes and the… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
The net effect of Clarence Darrow's great speech yesterday seemed to be precisely the same as if he had bawled it up… — H. L. Mencken Afghanistan Copy Share Image
A Progressive is one who is in favor of more taxes instead of less, more bureaus and jobholders, more paternalism and meddling,… — H. L. Mencken Affair Copy Share Image
The effort to reconcile science and religion is almost always made, not by theologians, but by scientists unable to shake off altogether… — H. L. Mencken Effort Copy Share Image
We have had more brilliant Presidents than Cleveland, and one or two who were considerably more profound, but we have never had… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
A Galileo could no more be elected president of the United States than he could be elected Pope of Rome. Both high… — H. L. Mencken Agnostic Copy Share Image
The average schoolmaster is and always must be essentially an ass, for how can one imagine an intelligent man engaging in so… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
The average man's love of liberty is nine-tenths imaginary, exactly like his love of sense, justice and truth... It takes a special… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
![“[Science] must be amoral by its very nature: The minute it begins separating facts into the two categories of good ones and bad ones it ceases to be science and becomes a mere nuisance, like theology.” quote by H. L. Mencken](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/e28/h-l-mencken-245_categories_science-must-be-amoral-by-its-very-natur_2661671.jpg)
