A politician is an animal which can sit on a fence and yet keep both ears to the ground. — H. L. Mencken Animal Copy Share Image
To be in love is merely to be in a state of perceptual anesthesia - to mistake an ordinary young woman for… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
It is impossible to believe that the same God who permitted His own son to die a bachelor regards celibacy as an… — H. L. Mencken Bachelors Copy Share Image
Progress: The process whereby the human race has got rid of whiskers, the vermiform appendix, and God. — H. L. Mencken Appendix Copy Share Image
The curse of man, and the cause of nearly all his woe, is his stupendous capacity for believing the incredible. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
Whenever "A" attempts by law to impose his moral standards upon "B," "A" is most likely a scoundrel. — H. L. Mencken Character Copy Share Image
The townspeople are morons, yokels, peasants and genus homo boobiensis...surrounded by gaping primates from the upland vallies. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
Democracy is also a form of worship. It is the worship of Jackals by Jackasses. — H. L. Mencken Democracy Copy Share Image
The typical lawmaker of today is a man wholly devoid of principle - a mere counter in a grotesque and knavish game.… — H. L. Mencken Astrology Copy Share Image
The two main ideas that run through all of my writing, whether it be literary criticism or political polemic are these: I… — H. L. Mencken Criticism Copy Share Image
Of all forms of visible otherworldliness, it seems to me, the Gothic is at once the most logical and the most beautiful.… — H. L. Mencken Architecture Copy Share Image
It takes no more actual sagacity to carry on the everyday hawking and haggling of the world, or to ladle out its… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
A politician normally prospers under democracy in proportion ... as he excels in the invention of imaginary perils and imaginary defenses against them. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
Sin is a dangerous toy in the hands of the virtuous. It should be left to the congenitally sinful, who know when… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
It is impossible to think of a man of any actual force and originality, universally recognized as having those qualities, who spent… — H. L. Mencken Creativity Copy Share Image
No healthy man, in his secret heart, is content with his destiny. He is tortured by dreams and images as a child… — H. L. Mencken Candy Copy Share Image
The seasick passenger on an ocean liner detests the good sailor who stalks past him 265 times a day grandly smoking a… — H. L. Mencken Cigar Copy Share Image
No man could bring himself to reveal his true character, and, above all, his true limitations as a citizen and a Christian,… — H. L. Mencken Autobiography Copy Share Image
No one in this world, so far as I know--and I have searched the records for years, and employed agents to help… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
The taboos that I have mentioned are extraordinarily harsh and numerous. They stand around nearly every subject that is genuinely important to… — H. L. Mencken Atheism Copy Share Image
“When difficulties confront him he no longer blames them upon the inscrutable enmity of remote and ineffable powers; he blames them upon… — H. L. Mencken Building blocks Copy Share Image
My belief in free speech is so profound that I am seldom tempted to deny it to the other fellow. Nor do… — H. L. Mencken Belief Copy Share Image
The average man never really thinks from end to end of his life. The mental activity of such people is only a… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
The essence of science is that it is always willing to abandon a given idea, however fundamental it may seem to be,… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under. — H. L. Mencken Ashamed Copy Share Image
Wife: one who is sorry she did it, but would undoubtedly do it again. — H. L. Mencken Inspirational Copy Share Image
