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At eight or nine, I suppose intelligence is no more than a small spot of light on the floor of a large and murky room.

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
Rooms
Floor
Small
Spots
Light
Suppose
Nine
Eight
Intelligence
Large
Murky
Room
Spot

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In human history a moral victory is always a disaster, for it debauches and degrades both the victor and the vanquished.
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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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Who ever heard, indeed, of an autobiography that was not (interesting)? I can recall none in all the literature of the world
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The central belief of every moron is that he is the victim of a mysterious conspiracy against his common rights and true deserts.
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Whenever a husband and wife begin to discuss their marriage they are giving evidence at a coroner's inquest.
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The physical business of writing is unpleasant to me, but the psychic satisfaction of discharging bad ideas in worse English makes me forget it.
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The demagogue is one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots.
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The most costly of all follies is to believe passionately in the palpably not true. It is the chief occupation of mankind.
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Jealousy is a keen observer, but looks for all the wrong signs.
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A poet more than thirty years old is simply an overgrown child.
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A professional politician is a professionally dishonorable man. In order to get anywhere near high office he has to make so many compromises and submit to so many humiliations that he becomes indistinguishable from a streetwalker.
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It is Hell, of course, that makes priests powerful, not Heaven, for after thousands of years of so-called civilization fear remains the one common denominator of mankind
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The only way that a government can provide for jobs for all citizens is by deciding what every man should do.
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There are men so philosophical that they can see humor in their own toothaches. But there has never lived a man so philosophical that he could see the toothache in his own humor.
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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.
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Man weeps to think that he will die so soon woman, that she was born so long ago.
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