Quote

War is the only sport which is genuinely amusing. And it is the only sport which has any intelligible use.

H. L. Mencken

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Sport
Sports
Peace
Use
War
Intelligible
Amusing
Genuinely

More quotes by H. L. Mencken

Image
Laws are no longer made by a rational process of public discussion they are made by a process of blackmail and intimidation, and they are executed in the same manner
H. L. Mencken
Image
Without a doubt there are women who would vote intelligently. There are also men who knit socks beautifully.
H. L. Mencken
Image
Men have a much better time of it than women. For one thing, they marry later for another thing, they die earlier.
H. L. Mencken
Image
The late William Jennings Bryan, L.L.D., always had one great advantage in controversy he was never burdened with an understanding of his opponent's case.
H. L. Mencken
Image
Wife: one who is sorry she did it, but would undoubtedly do it again.
H. L. Mencken
Image
The final test of truth is ridicule. Very few dogmas have ever faced it and survived.
H. L. Mencken
Image
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
Image
I believe that it should be perfectly lawful to print even things that outrage the pruderies and prejudices of the general, so long as any honest minority, however small, wants to read them. The remedy of the majority is not prohibition, but avoidance.
H. L. Mencken
Image
Once a woman passes a certain point in intelligence she finds it almost impossible to get a husband: she simply cannot go on listening without snickering.
H. L. Mencken
Image
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.
H. L. Mencken
Image
Each party steals so many articles of faith from the other, and the candidates spend so much time making each other's speeches, that by the time election day is past there is nothing much to do save turn the sitting rascals out and let a new gang in.
H. L. Mencken
Image
All government, in its essence, is a conspiracy against the superior man: it's one permanent object is to oppress him and cripple him... One of its primary functions is to regiment men by force, to make them as much alike as possible and as dependent upon one another as possible, to search out and combat originality among them.
H. L. Mencken
Image
One smart reader is worth a thousand boneheads.
H. L. Mencken
Image
Skin diseases are something doctors like, the patient neither dies nor gets well.
H. L. Mencken
Image
The saddest life is that of a political aspirant under democracy. His failure is ignominious and his success is disgraceful.
H. L. Mencken
Image
The objection of the scandalmonger is not that she tells of racy doings, but that she pretends to be indignant about them.
H. L. Mencken
Image
It is my conviction that no normal man ever fell in love, within the ordinary meaning of the term, after the age of thirty.
H. L. Mencken
Image
A man loses his sense of direction after four drinks a woman loses hers after four kisses.
H. L. Mencken
Image
The typical lawmaker of today is a man wholly devoid of principle - a mere counter in a grotesque and knavish game. If the right pressure could be applied to him, he would be cheerfully in favor of polygamy, astrology or cannibalism.
H. L. Mencken
Image
The average man never really thinks from end to end of his life. The mental activity of such people is only a mouthing of clichés.
H. L. Mencken