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H. L. Mencken Quotes


Page 4 of 8
H. L. Mencken
September 12, 1880 - January 29, 1956
Nationality: American
Category: Writer
Subcategory: American Writer

It is hard to believe that a man is telling the truth when you know that you would lie if you were in his place.

   

A good politician is quite as unthinkable as an honest burglar.

   

Democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey cage.

   

Don't overestimate the decency of the human race.

   

Poetry has done enough when it charms, but prose must also convince.

   

The one permanent emotion of the inferior man is fear - fear of the unknown, the complex, the inexplicable. What he wants above everything else is safety.

   

Legend: A lie that has attained the dignity of age.

   

Unquestionably, there is progress. The average American now pays out twice as much in taxes as he formerly got in wages.

   

Life is a constant oscillation between the sharp horns of dilemmas.

   

If a politician found he had cannibals among his constituents, he would promise them missionaries for dinner.

   

I never lecture, not because I am shy or a bad speaker, but simply because I detest the sort of people who go to lectures and don't want to meet them.

   

The most costly of all follies is to believe passionately in the palpably not true. It is the chief occupation of mankind.

   

Say what you will about the ten commandments, you must always come back to the pleasant fact that there are only ten of them.

   

Men have a much better time of it than women. For one thing, they marry later; for another thing, they die earlier.

   

Judge: a law student who marks his own examination-papers.

   

Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.

   

War will never cease until babies begin to come into the world with larger cerebrums and smaller adrenal glands.

   

Platitude: an idea (a) that is admitted to be true by everyone, and (b) that is not true.

   

As the arteries grow hard, the heart grows soft.

   

Puritanism. The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.

   

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