H.L. Mencken Quotes

The final test of truth is ridicule. Very few dogmas have ever faced it and survived.

Religion deserves no more respect than a pile of garbage.

There are two kinds of music; German music and bad music.

The American people, North and South, went into the [Civil] war as citizens of their respective states, they came out as subjects ... what they thus lost they have never got back.

Correct spelling, indeed, is one of the arts that are far more esteemed by schoolma’ams than by practical men, neck-deep in the heat and agony of the world.

Women in general seem to me to be appreciably more intelligent than men. A great many of them suffer in silence from the imbecilities of their husbands.

It is impossible to imagine the universe run by a wise, just and omnipotent God, but it is quite easy to imagine it run by a board of gods.

The basic fact about human existence is not that it is a tragedy, but that it is a bore. It is not so much a war as an endless standing in line.

A celebrity is one who is known to many persons he is glad he doesn't know.

No matter how happily a woman may be married, it always pleases her to discover that there is a nice man who wishes that she were not.

American journalism (like the journalism of any other country) is predominantly paltry and worthless. Its pretensions are enormous, but its achievements are insignificant.

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

All talk of winning the people by appealing to their intelligence, of conquering them by impeccable syllogism, is so much moonshine.

If experience teaches us anything at all, it teaches us this: that a good politician, under democracy, is quite as unthinkable as an honest burglar.

Penetrating so many secrets, we cease to believe in the unknowable. But there it sits nevertheless, calmly licking its chops

A man is called a good fellow for doing things which, if done by a woman, would land her in a lunatic asylum.

Man is a natural polygamist: he always has one woman leading him by the nose, and another hanging on to his coattails.

The central belief of every moron is that he is the victim of a mysterious conspiracy against his common rights and true deserts.

Once a woman passes a certain point in intelligence she finds it almost impossible to get a husband: she simply cannot go on listening without snickering.

The ideal way to get rid of any infectious disease would be to shoot instantly every person who comes down with it.

Adultery is the application of democracy to love.

A man full of faith is simply one who has lost the capacity for clear and realistic thought.

Whenever you hear a man speak of his love for his country, it is a sign that he expects to be paid for it.

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.

A philosopher is a blind man in a dark room looking for a black cat that isn't there. A theologian is the man who finds it.

The theatre, when all is said and done, is not life in miniature, but life enormously magnified, life hideously exaggerated.

Bridges would not be safer if only people who knew the proper definition of a real number were allowed to design them.

[T]he only thing wrong with Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address was that it was the South, not the North, that was fighting for a government of the people, by the people and for the people.

For me to go into politics would be like sending a virgin into a house of ill-repute.

But I wonder where we will land if trial judges begin deciding that the fact that a man has committed an atrocious crime is proof sufficient that he is not responsible for his acts.

In the main, there are two sorts of books: those that no one reads and those that no one ought to read.

The function of a newspaper in a democracy is to stand as a sort of chronic opposition to the reigning quacks. The minute it begins to out-whoop them it forfeits its character and becomes ridiculous.

Haste is of the devil. Slowness is of God.

It is the theory of all modern civilized governments that they protect and foster the liberty of the citizen; it is the practice of all of them to limit its exercise, and sometimes very narrowly.

I never smoked a cigarette until I was nine.

The truth is that Christian theology, like every other theology, is not only opposed to the scientific spirit; it is also opposed to all other attempts at rational thinking.

Don't overestimate the decency of the human race.

Happiness is the china shop; love is the bull.

Every man sees in his relatives, and especially in his cousins, a series of grotesque caricatures of himself.

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

Giving every man a vote has no more made men wise and free than Christianity has made them good.

The chief value of money lies in the fact that one lives in a world in which it is overestimated.

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

Government is actually the worst failure of civilized man. There has never been a really good one, and even those that are most tolerable are arbitrary, cruel, grasping and unintelligent.

There is no idea so stupid that you can't find a professor who will believe it.

The saddest life is that of a political aspirant under democracy. His failure is ignominious and his success is disgraceful.

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

Religion is "so absurd that it comes close to imbecility."

Those who can't teach - administrate. Those who can't administrate - go into politics.

A gentlemen is one who never strikes a woman without provocation.