X

Sort by

Quote length

Sentiment

Change font

Change background

H L Mencken Inspirational Quotes (501)

Page 18 of 21
Filter & Style
Image
For it is mutual trust, even more than mutual interest that holds human associations together.
H. L. Mencken
Image
If x is the population of the United States and y is the degree of imbecility of the average American, then democracy is the theory that x times y is less than y
H. L. Mencken
Image
The fact that a human brain of high amperage, otherwise highly efficient, may have a hole in it is surely not a secret.
H. L. Mencken
Image
The truth, indeed, is something that mankind, for some mysterious reason, instinctively dislikes. Every man who tries to tell it is unpopular, and even when, by the sheer strength of his case, he prevails, he is put down as a scoundrel.
H. L. Mencken
Image
The objection to Puritans is not that they try to make us think as they do, but that they try to make us do as they think.
H. L. Mencken
Image
I believe that no discovery of fact, however trivial, can be wholly useless to the race, and that no trumpeting of falsehood, however virtuous in intent, can be anything but vicious.
H. L. Mencken
Image
To every complex question there is a simple answer and it is wrong.
H. L. Mencken
Image
Taxation, for example, is eternally lively it concerns nine-tenths of us more directly than either smallpox or golf, and has just as much drama in it moreover, it has been mellowed and made gay by as many gaudy, preposterous theories
H. L. Mencken
Image
I can't imagine a genuinely intelligent boy getting much out of college, even out of a good college, save it be a cynical habit of mind.
H. L. Mencken
Image
I believe that any man who takes the liberty of another into his keeping is bound to become a tyrant, and that any man who yields up his liberty, in however slight the measure, is bound to become a slave.
H. L. Mencken
Image
Truth would quickly cease to be stranger than fiction, once we got as used to it.
H. L. Mencken
Image
Christian endeavor is notoriously hard on female pulchritude.
H. L. Mencken
Image
Better than the rest of us, they [the Jews] sensed what was ahead for their people.
H. L. Mencken
Image
Poetry is a comforting piece of fiction set to more or less lascivious music.
H. L. Mencken
Image
A bad man is the sort who weeps every time he speaks of a good woman.
H. L. Mencken
Image
My guess is that well over eighty per cent. of the human race goes through life without having a single original thought.
H. L. Mencken
Image
The lunatic fringe wags the underdog.
H. L. Mencken
Image
Hanging one scoundrel, it appears, does not deter the next. Well, what of it? The first one is at least disposed of.
H. L. Mencken
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
Image
My belief in free speech is so profound that I am seldom tempted to deny it to the other fellow. Nor do I make any effort to differentiate between the other fellow right and that other fellow wrong, for I am convinced that free speech is worth nothing unless it includes a full franchise to be foolish and even...malicious.
H. L. Mencken
Image
Every autobiography ... becomes an absorbing work of fiction, with something of the charm of a cryptogram.
H. L. Mencken
Image
It is almost impossible for an Anglo-Saxon to write of sex without being dirty.
H. L. Mencken
Image
We suffer most when the White House busts with ideas.
H. L. Mencken
Image
After all, all he did was string together a lot of old, well-known quotations.
H. L. Mencken
Previous
Next