H. L. Mencken Quotes

H. L. Mencken Quotes. Below is a collection of famous H. L. Mencken quotes. Here you can find the most popular and greatest quotes by H. L. Mencken. Share these quotations with your friends and family.

Man is a beautiful machine that works very badly.
By H. L. Mencken
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A bad man is the sort who weeps every time he speaks of a good woman.
By H. L. Mencken
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Judge: a law student who marks his own examination-papers.
By H. L. Mencken
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The lunatic fringe wags the underdog.
By H. L. Mencken
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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.
By H. L. Mencken
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The worst government is often the most moral. One composed of cynics is often very tolerant and humane. But when fanatics are on top there is no limit to oppression.
By H. L. Mencken
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Unquestionably, there is progress. The average American now pays out twice as much in taxes as he formerly got in wages.
By H. L. Mencken
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We are here and it is now. Further than that, all human knowledge is moonshine.
By H. L. Mencken
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Say what you will about the ten commandments, you must always come back to the pleasant fact that there are only ten of them.
By H. L. Mencken
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Marriage is a wonderful institution, but who would want to live in an institution.
By H. L. Mencken
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A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin.
By H. L. Mencken
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If, after I depart this vale, you ever remember me and have thought to please my ghost, forgive some sinner and wink your eye at some homely girl.
By H. L. Mencken
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Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under.
By H. L. Mencken
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Every man is his own hell.
By H. L. Mencken
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Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable.
By H. L. Mencken
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Giving every man a vote has no more made men wise and free than Christianity has made them good.
By H. L. Mencken
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The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.
By H. L. Mencken
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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.
By H. L. Mencken
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The basic fact about human existence is not that it is a tragedy, but that it is a bore.
By H. L. Mencken
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Communism, like any other revealed religion, is largely made up of prophecies.
By H. L. Mencken
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Every man sees in his relatives, and especially in his cousins, a series of grotesque caricatures of himself.
By H. L. Mencken
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Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.
By H. L. Mencken
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I write in order to attain that feeling of tension relieved and function achieved which a cow enjoys on giving milk.
By H. L. Mencken
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I go on working for the same reason that a hen goes on laying eggs.
By H. L. Mencken
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I confess I enjoy democracy immensely. It is incomparably idiotic, and hence incomparably amusing.
By H. L. Mencken
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If women believed in their husbands they would be a good deal happier and also a good deal more foolish.
By H. L. Mencken
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Let's not burn the universities yet. After all, the damage they do might be worse.
By H. L. Mencken
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Life is a constant oscillation between the sharp horns of dilemmas.
By H. L. Mencken
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It is a sin to believe evil of others, but it is seldom a mistake.
By H. L. Mencken
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It is hard for the ape to believe he descended from man.
By H. L. Mencken
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