Mencken, H.L. (H. L. Mencken)

The average man does not want to be free. He simply wants to be safe.
-- H. L. Mencken

I believe that liberty is the only genuinely valuable thing that men have invented, at least in the field of government, in a thousand years. I believe that it is better to be free than to be not free, even when the former is dangerous and the latter safe. I believe that the finest qualities of man can flourish only in free air
-- H. L. Mencken

Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag and begin slitting throats.
-- H. L. Mencken

I believe in only one thing: liberty; but I do not believe in liberty enough to want to force it upon anyone.
-- H. L. Mencken

And what is a good citizen? Simply one who never says, does or thinks anything that is unusual. Schools are maintained in order to bring this uniformity up to the highest possible point. A school is a hopper into which children are heaved while they are still young and tender; therein they are pressed into certain standard shapes and covered from head to heels with official rubber-stamps.
-- H. L. Mencken

Explanations exist; they have existed for all times, for there is always an easy solution to every human problems
-- H. L. Mencken

The psychologists and the metaphysicians wrangle endlessly over the nature of the thinking process in man, but no matter how violently they differ otherwise they all agree that it has little to do with logic and is not much conditioned by overt facts.
-- H. L. Mencken

There is always an easy solution to every human problem
-- H. L. Mencken

Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under.
-- H. L. Mencken

A newspaper is a device for making the ignorant more ignorant and the crazy crazier.
-- H. L. Mencken

A good politician is quite as unthinkable as an honest burglar.
-- H. L. Mencken

It is inaccurate to say I hate everything. I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty, and common decency. This makes me forever ineligible for public office.
-- H. L. Mencken

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.
-- H. L. Mencken

Of all the classes of men, I dislike most those who make their livings by talking--actors, clergymen, politicians, pedagogues, and so on. All of them participate in the shallow false pretenses of the actor who is their archetype. It is almost impossible to imagine a talker who sticks to the facts. Carried away by the sound of his own voice and the applause of the groundlings, he makes inevitably the jump from logic to mere rhetoric.
-- H. L. Mencken

When the government is robbed, the worst that happens is that certain rogues and loafers have less money to play with than they had before.
-- H. L. Mencken

Nature abhors a moron.
-- H. L. Mencken

The most common of all follies is to believe passionately in the palpably not true. It is the chief occupation of mankind.
-- H. L. Mencken

The basic fact about human existence is not that it is a tragedy, but that it is a bore.
-- H. L. Mencken

A celebrity is one who is known by many people he is glad he doesn't know.
-- H. L. Mencken

A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin.
-- H. L. Mencken

An idealist is one who, on noticing that roses smell better than a cabbage, concludes that it will also make better soup.
-- H. L. Mencken

Nature abhors a moron.
-- H. L. Mencken

The most common of all follies is to believe passionately in the palpably not true. It is the chief occupation of mankind.
-- H. L. Mencken

The basic fact about human existence is not that it is a tragedy, but that it is a bore.
-- H. L. Mencken

A celebrity is one who is known by many people he is glad he doesn't know.
-- H. L. Mencken

A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin.
-- H. L. Mencken

An idealist is one who, on noticing that roses smell better than a cabbage, concludes that it will also make better soup.
-- H. L. Mencken

A poet more than thirty years old is simply an overgrown child.
-- H. L. Mencken

Conscience is the inner voice that warns us somebody is looking.
-- H. L. Mencken

Remorse
-- H. L. Mencken

For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
-- H. L. Mencken

Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.
-- H. L. Mencken

Time is the great legalizer, even in the field of morals.
-- H. L. Mencken

Immorality: The morality of those who are having a better time.
-- H. L. Mencken

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

Conscience is a mother-in-law whose visit never ends.
-- H. L. Mencken

Truth - Something somehow discreditable to someone.
-- H. L. Mencken

The world always makes the assumption that the exposure of an error is identical with the discovery of the truth -- that error and truth are simply opposite. They are nothing of the sort. What the world turns to, when it has been cured of one error, is usually simply another error, and maybe one worse than the first one.
-- H. L. Mencken

One seldom discovers a true believer that is worth knowing.
-- H. L. Mencken

Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable.
-- H. L. Mencken

A man full of faith is simply one who has lost (or never had) the capacity for clear and realistic thought. He is not a mere ass; he is actually ill. Worse, he is incurable.
-- H. L. Mencken

We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart.
-- H. L. Mencken

Philosophy consists very largely of one philosopher arguing that all other philosophers are jackasses. He usually proves it, and I should add that he also usually proves that he is one himself.
-- H. L. Mencken

The believing mind is externally impervious to evidence. The most that can be accomplished with it is to induce it to substitute one delusion for another. It rejects all overt evidence as wicked...
-- H. L. Mencken

I believe that religion, generally speaking, has been a curse to mankind -- that its modest and greatly overestimated services on the ethical side have been more than overcome by the damage it has done to clear and honest thinking.
-- H. L. Mencken

Creator - A comedian whose audience is afraid to laugh.
-- H. L. Mencken

Imagine the Creator as a low comedian, and at once the world becomes explicable.
-- H. L. Mencken

The worst government is the most moral. One composed of cynics is often very tolerant and human. But when fanatics are on top there is no limit to oppression.
-- H. L. Mencken

The world always makes the assumption that the exposure of an error is identical with the discovery of the truth
-- H. L. Mencken

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

Men become civilized, not in proportion to their willingness to believe, but in their readiness to doubt.
-- H. L. Mencken

We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart.
-- H. L. Mencken