American history Quote by H. L. Mencken

Alimony - the ransom that the happy pay to the devil.

— H. L. Mencken

A bad artist almost always tries to conceal his incompetence by whooping up a new formula.

— H. L. Mencken

By profession a biologist, [Thomas Henry Huxley] covered in fact the whole field of the exact sciences, and then bulged through its four fences.…

— H. L. Mencken

So few men are really worth knowing, that it seems a shameful waste to let an anthropoid prejudice stand in the way of free…

— H. L. Mencken

Man's objection to love is that it dies hard; woman's, that when it is dead, it stays dead.

— H. L. Mencken

The lunatic fringe wags the underdog.

— H. L. Mencken

For it is an absurdity to call a country civilized in which a decent and industrious man, laboriously mastering a trade which is valuble…

— H. L. Mencken

Women have simple tastes. They get pleasure out of the conversation of children in arms and men in love.

— H. L. Mencken

The critic, to interpret his artist, even to understand his artist, must be able to get into the mind of his artist; he must…

— H. L. Mencken

There is, in fact, nothing about religious opinions that entitles them to any more respect than other opinions get. On the contrary, they tend…

— H. L. Mencken

Don't overestimate the decency of the human race.

— H. L. Mencken

Liberty ... was a two-headed boon. There was first, the liberty of the people as a whole to determine the forms of their own…

— H. L. Mencken