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Looking for an honest politician is like looking for an ethical burglar.
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
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Literary Critic
Satirist
Social Critic
Writer
Baltimore
Maryland
Henry Louis Mencken
Burglars
Ethical
Politician
Honest
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Burglar
More quotes by H. L. Mencken
Platitude: an idea (a) that is admitted to be true by everyone, and (b) that is not true.
H. L. Mencken
When I hear artists or authors making fun of businessmen, I think of a regiment in which the band makes fun of the cooks.
H. L. Mencken
Whenever A annoys or injures B on the pretense of saving or improving X, A is a scoundrel.
H. L. Mencken
All great religions, in order to escape absurdity, have to admit a dilution of agnosticism. It is only the savage, whether of the African bush or the American gospel tent, who pretends to know the will and intent of God exactly and completely.
H. L. Mencken
It is impossible to imagine the universe run by a wise, just and omnipotent God, but it is quite easy to imagine it run by a board of gods.
H. L. Mencken
[T]here is only one sound argument for democracy, and that is the argument that it is a crime for any man to hold himself out as better than other men, and, above all, a most heinous offense for him to prove it.
H. L. Mencken
The theory seems to be that as long as a man is a failure he is one of God's children, but that as soon as he succeeds he is taken over by the Devil.
H. L. Mencken
[T]he only thing wrong with Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address was that it was the South, not the North, that was fighting for a government of the people, by the people and for the people.
H. L. Mencken
The movies today are too rich to have any room for genuine artists. They produce a few passable craftsmen, but no artists. Can you imagine a Beethoven making $100, 000 a year?
H. L. Mencken
There is always a well-known solution to every human problem - neat, plausible, and wrong.
H. L. Mencken
The motive of fear is the be-all and end-all of religion.
H. L. Mencken
It doesn't take a majority to make a rebellion it takes only a few determined leaders and a sound cause.
H. L. Mencken
He slept more than any other president, whether by day or by night. Nero fiddled, but Coolidge only snored.
H. L. Mencken
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
Osteopath--One who argues that all human ills are caused by the pressure of hard bone upon soft tissue. The proof of his theory isto be found in the heads of those who believe it.
H. L. Mencken
The saddest life is that of a political aspirant under democracy. His failure is ignominious and his success is disgraceful.
H. L. Mencken
I know of no existing nation that deserves to live, and I know of very few individuals.
H. L. Mencken
If, after I depart this vale, you ever remember me and have thought to please my ghost, forgive some sinner and wink your eye at some homely girl.
H. L. Mencken
Psychotherapy is the theory that the patient will probably get well anyhow and is certainly a damn fool.
H. L. Mencken
Archbishop - A Christian ecclesiastic of a rank superior to that attained by Christ.
H. L. Mencken
