H. L. Mencken Sayings and Quotes

Below you will find our collection of inspirational, wise, and humorous old H. L. Mencken quotes, H. L. Mencken sayings, and H. L. Mencken proverbs, collected over the years from a variety of sources.'

The ants and the bees are, in many ways, far more intelligent and ingenious; they manage their government with vastly less quarreling, wastefulness and imbecility.  H. L. Mencken
A large part of altruism, even when it is perfectly honest, is grounded upon the fact that it is uncomfortable to have unhappy people about one. H. L. Mencken
The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary. H. L. Mencken
It is hard for the ape to believe he descended from man. H. L. Mencken
The double standard of morality will survive in this world so long as the woman whose husband has been lured away is favoured with the sympathetic tears of other women, and a man whose wife has made off is laughed at by other men. 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
A Puritan is someone who is desperately afraid that, somewhere, someone might be having a good time. H. L. Mencken
It is not materialism that is the chief curse of the world, as pastors teach, but idealism. Men get into trouble by taking their visions and hallucinations too seriously. H. L. Mencken
A national political campaign is better than the best circus ever heard of, with a mass baptism and a couple of hangings thrown in. H. L. Mencken
On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron. H. L. Mencken
Nature abhors a moron. H. L. Mencken
The older I grow, the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom. H. L. Mencken
The older I grow, the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom. H. L. Mencken
A church is a place in which gentlemen who have never been to heaven brag about it to persons who will never get there. H. L. Mencken
A judge is a law student who marks his own examination papers. H. L. Mencken
Love is like war: easy to begin but very hard to stop. H. L. Mencken
Love is the delusion that one woman differs from another. H. L. Mencken
Love us the triumph of imagination over intelligence. H. L. Mencken
No married man is genuinely happy if he has to drink worse whisky than he used to drink when he was single. H. L. Mencken
Love is the delusion that one woman differs from another. H. L. Mencken
Love us the triumph of imagination over intelligence. H. L. Mencken
There is always a sheet of paper. There is always a pen. There is always a way out. H. L. Mencken
The artist is not a reporter, but a Great Teacher. It is not his business to depict the world as it is, but as it ought to be. H. L. Mencken
I've made it a rule never to drink by daylight and never to refuse a drink after dark. H. L. Mencken
Criticism is prejudice made plausible. H. L. Mencken
Love is like war easy to begin but very hard to stop. H. L. Mencken
Penetrating so many secrets, we cease to believe in the Unknowable. But there it sits, nevertheless, calmly licking its chops. H. L. Mencken
Of all the forms of visible otherworldliness, the Gothic is at once the most logical and the most beautiful. It reaches up magnificently—and a good half of it is palpably worthless. H. L. Mencken
Love is the delusion that one woman differs from another. H. L. Mencken
Love us the triumph of imagination over intelligence. H. L. Mencken

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