Quote

If all the lawyers were hanged tomorrow, and their bones were sold to a mah jong factory, we'd all be freer and safer, and our taxes would be reduced by almost a half.

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
Sold
Jong
Lawyer
Hanged
Bones
Freer
Taxes
Safer
Tomorrow
Factory
Almost
Lawyers
Half
Reduced
Would
Factories

More quotes by H. L. Mencken

Image
To denounce moralizing out of hand is to pronounce a moral judgment.
H. L. Mencken
Image
No reporter of my generation, whatever his genius, ever really rated spats and a walking stick until he had covered both a lynching and a revolution.
H. L. Mencken
Image
The older I grow the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom.
H. L. Mencken
Image
The first kiss is stolen by the man the last is begged by the woman.
H. L. Mencken
Image
In any combat between a rogue and a fool the sympathy of mankind is always with the rogue.
H. L. Mencken
Image
No healthy man, in his secret heart, is content with his destiny. He is tortured by dreams and images as a child is tortured by the thought of a state of existence in which it would live in a candy store and have two stomachs.
H. L. Mencken
Image
The cynics are right nine times out of ten.
H. L. Mencken
Image
The other day a dog peed on me. A bad sign.
H. L. Mencken
Image
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.
H. L. Mencken
Image
All the great villainies of history, from the murder of Abel onward, have been perpetrated by sober men, chiefly by Teetotalers.
H. L. Mencken
Image
No government is ever really in favor of so-called civil rights. It always tries to whittle them down. They are preserved under all governments, insofar as they survive at all, by special classes of fanatics, often highly dubious.
H. L. Mencken
Image
To be in love is merely to be in a state of perceptual anesthesia - to mistake an ordinary young woman for a goddess.
H. L. Mencken
Image
Good government is that which delivers the citizen from being done out of his life and property too arbitrarily and violently-one that relieves him sufficiently from the barbaric business of guarding them to enable him to engage in gentler, more dignified, and more agreeable undertakings.
H. L. Mencken
Image
The aim of New Deals is to exterminate the class of creditors and thrust all men into that of debtors. It is like trying to breedcattle with all cows and no bulls.
H. L. Mencken
Image
There's no underestimating the intelligence of the American public.
H. L. Mencken
Image
Religion is fundamentally opposed to everything I hold in veneration - courage, clear thinking, honesty, fairness, and, above all, love of the truth.
H. L. Mencken
Image
A dull, dark, depressing day in Winter: the whole world looks like a Methodist church at Wednesday night prayer meeting.
H. L. Mencken
Image
On one issue, at least, men and women agree. They both distrust women.
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 trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.
H. L. Mencken