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H. L. Mencken Quotes - Page 30

All Quotes Achievement Adultery Adventure Age Alcohol Arguing Art Atheism Atheist Beer Belief Business Change Character Children Choices College Comedy Common Sense Communism Conscience Conspiracy Cooking Country Courage Criticism Critics Culture Cynicism Death Democracy Determination Devil Difficulty Dignity Doubt Drinking Dying Earth Education Effort Ethics Evil Exercise Faith Fear Feelings Fighting Food Free Speech Freedom Funny Genius Giving God Golf Happiness Hate Heart Heaven Hell History Home Honesty Honor House Humanity Husband Ignorance Imagination Inspirational Intelligence Intuition Journalism Joy Judging Justice Kissing Knowledge Language Laughter Learning Liberty Life Literature Logic Love Lying Marriage Military Money Moon Morality Music Nature Office Originality Passion Past Patriotism Peace Personality Philosophy Politics Pot Poverty Prejudice Progress Propaganda Quality Quitting Reading Religion Respect Revolution Running Safety School Science Science And Religion Skins Slavery Society Son Sports Struggle Stupidity Style Success Suffering Sunday Sympathy Teaching Temptation Time Today Tragedy Trust Truth Virtue Voting Waiting War Water Weakness Wife Wisdom Work Writing Youth

The most valuable of all human possessions, next to a superior and disdainful air, is the reputation of being well-to-do.

The most valuable of all human possessions, next to a superior and disdainful air, is the reputation of being well-to-do.

Funny, Life, Success

H. L. Mencken, Marion Elizabeth Rodgers (2010). “H.L. Mencken: Prejudices: First, Second, and Third Series”, Hubsta Ltd

The lunatic fringe wags the underdog.

Inspirational, Funny, Underdog

H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.622, Vintage

The notion that anything is gained by fixing a language in a groove is cherished only by pedants.

Fixing, Pedants, Language

H.L. Mencken (2012). “American Language”, p.607, Knopf

The essential dilemma of education is to be found in the fact that the sort of man (or woman) who knows a given subject sufficiently well to teach it is usually unwilling to do so.

Men, Essentials, Facts

I am, in fact, the complete anti-Messiah, and detest converts almost as much as I detest missionaries. My writings, such as they are, have had only one purpose: to attain for H. L. Mencken that feeling of tension relieved and function achieved which a cow enjoys on giving milk.

Writing, Giving, Feelings

"For the Defense Written for the Associated Press, for use in my obituary" by H. L. Mencken, November 20, 1940.

Whenever I write anything that sets up controversy its meaning is distorted almost instantly. Even the editorial writers of newspapers seem to be unable to understand the plainest sentence.

Writing, Newspapers, Controversy

How little it takes to make life unbearable: a pebble in the shoe, a cockroach in the spaghetti, a woman's laugh.

Life, Laughter, Shoes

H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.620, Vintage

I am never much interested in the effects of what I write....I seldom read with any attention the reviews of my...books. Two times out of three I know something about the reviewer, and in very few cases have I any respect for his judgments. Thus his praise, if he praises me, leaves me unmoved. I can't recall any review that has even influenced me in the slightest. I live in sort of a vacuum, and I suspect that most other writers do, too. It is hard to imagine one of the great ones paying any serious attention to contemporary opinion.

Book, Writing, Two

Of government, at least in democratic states, it may be said briefly that it is an agency engaged wholesale, and as a matter of solemn duty, in the performance of acts which all self-respecting individuals refrain from as a matter of common decency.

Freedom, Agency, Government

Truth - Something somehow discreditable to someone.

Freedom, Democracy

"A Mencken Chrestomathy". Book by H. L. Mencken, 1949.

Husbands never become good; they merely become proficient.

Husband, Good Husband

A prohibitionist is the sort of man one couldn't care to drink with, even if he drank.

Drinking, Food, Men

The Catholic clergy seldom bother to make their arguments plausible; it is plain that they have little respect for human intelligence, and indeed little belief in its existence.

Catholic, Littles, Superstitions

The instant I reach Heaven, I'm going to speak to God very sharply.

Heaven, Speak, Instant

"Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

A professor must have a theory as a dog must have fleas.

Dog, Fleas, Professors

H.L. MENCKEN (1958). “PREJUDICES A SELECTION”

What I got in Sunday school ... was simply a firm conviction that the Christian faith was full of palpable absurdities, and the Christian God preposterous.... The act of worship, as carried on by Christians, seems to me to be debasing rather than ennobling. It involves groveling before a being who, if he really exists, deserves to be denounced instead of respected.

Christian, School, Sunday

Man weeps to think that he will die so soon; woman, that she was born so long ago.

Men, Thinking, Long Ago

A great literature is thus chiefly the product of doubting and inquiring minds in revolt against the immovable certainties of the nation.

Mind, Literature, Inquiring

"Prejudices Second Series".

The formula of the argument is simple and familiar: to dispose of a problem all that is necessary is to deny that it exists.

Simple, Argument, Problem

H. L. Mencken, Marion Elizabeth Rodgers (2010). “H.L. Mencken: Prejudices: First, Second, and Third Series”, Hubsta Ltd

Jealousy is the theory that some other fellow has just as little taste.

Jealous, Littles, Taste

"A Mencken Chrestomathy". Book by H. L. Mencken, 1949.

Poetry is a comforting piece of fiction set to more or less lascivious music.

Comforting, Fiction, Pieces

H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.449, Vintage

I drink exactly as much as I want, and one drink more.

Drinking, Alcohol, Want

Popularity--The capacity for listening sympathetically when men boast of their wives and women complain of their husbands.

Marriage, Husband, Men

God is the immemorial refuge of the incompetent, the helpless, and the miserable. They find not only sanctuary in his arms, but also a kind of superiority, soothing to their macerated egos; he will set them above their betters.

Ego, Sanctuary, Arms

A man always blames the woman who fools him. In the same way he blames the door he walks into in the dark.

Funny Inspirational, Dark, Men

H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.620, Vintage

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