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Before a man speaks it is always safe to assume that he is a fool. After he speaks, it is seldom necessary to assume it.

H. L. Mencken

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H. L. Mencken
Age: 75 †
Born: 1880
Born: September 12
Died: 1956
Died: January 29
Autobiographer
Essayist
Historian
Journalist
Linguist
Literary Critic
Satirist
Social Critic
Writer
Baltimore
Maryland
Henry Louis Mencken
Necessary
Fool
Safe
Literature
Seldom
Speak
Speaks
Always
Assume
Men
Assuming
Safety

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The chief knowledge that's man on from reading books is the knowledge that very few of them are worth reading.
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In the main, there are two sorts of books: those that no one reads and those that no one ought to read.
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Has the art of politics no apparent utility? Does it appear to be unqualifiedly ratty, raffish, sordid, obscene, and low down, andits salient virtuosi a gang of unmitigated scoundrels? Then let us not forget its high capacity to soothe and tickle the midriff, its incomparable services as a maker of entertainment.
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Imagine the Creator as a low comedian, and at once the world becomes explicable.
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We suffer most when the White House busts with ideas.
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There are two impossibilities in life: just one drink and an honest politician.
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The curse of man, and the cause of nearly all his woe, is his stupendous capacity for believing the incredible.
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It is surely no mere coincidence that the land of the emancipated and enthroned woman is also the land of canned soup, of canned pork and beans, of whole meals in cans, and of everything else ready made.
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The idea that the sole aim of punishment is to prevent crime is obviously grounded upon the theory that crime can be prevented, which is almost as dubious as the notion that poverty can be prevented.
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No man ever quite believes in any other man.
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Men always try to make virtues of their weaknesses. Fear of death and fear of life both become piety.
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When you sympathize with a married woman you either make two enemies or gain one wife and one friend.
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Government is actually the worst failure of civilized man. There has never been a really good one, and even those that are most tolerable are arbitrary, cruel, grasping and unintelligent.
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Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule—and both commonly succeed, and are right.
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The great artists of the world are never Puritans, and seldom even ordinarily respectable.
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Unionism, seldom if ever, uses such powers as it has to ensure better work almost always it devotes a large part of that power to safeguard bad work.
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For me to go into politics would be like sending a virgin into a house of ill-repute.
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A sense of humor always withers in the presence of the messianic delusion, like justice and the truth in front of patriotic passion.
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