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The difference between a moral man and a man of honor is that the latter regrets a discreditable act, even when it has worked and he has not been caught.

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
Worked
Honor
Discreditable
Difference
Regrets
Differences
Latter
Moral
Ethics
Character
Caught
Even
Morality
Men
Regret

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The editors are committed to nothing save this: to keep common sense as fast as they can, to belabor sham as agreeably as possible, to give civilized entertainment.
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Religion deserves no more respect than a pile of garbage.
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The allurement that women hold out to men is precisely the allurement that Cape Hatteras holds out to sailors they are enormously dangerous and hence enormously fascinating.
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If the American people really tire of democracy and want to make a trial of Fascism, I shall be the last person to object. But if that is their mood, then they had better proceed toward their aim by changing the Constitution and not by forgetting it.
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As long as you represent me as praising alcohol I shall not complain.
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The older I grow the less I esteem mere ideas. In politics, particularly, they are transient and unimportant. . . . There are only men who have character and men who lack it.
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Psychotherapy is the theory that the patient will probably get well anyhow and is certainly a damn fool.
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Love is photogenic. It needs darkness room to develop
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Women have a hard enough time in this world: telling them the truth would be too cruel.
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Platitude: an idea (a) that is admitted to be true by everyone, and (b) that is not true.
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Suppose two-thirds of the members of the national House of Representatives were dumped into the Washington garbage incinerator tomorrow, what would we lose to offset our gain of their salaries and the salaries of their parasites?
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The sort of man who likes to spend his time watching a cage of monkeys chase one another, or a lion gnaw its tail, or a lizard catch flies, is precisely the sort of man whose mental weakness should be combated at the public expense, not fostered.
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If there were only three women left in the world, two of them would immediately convene a court-martial to try the other one.
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The final test of truth is ridicule. Very few dogmas have ever faced it and survived.
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