Quotes by H. L. Mencken

Puritanism. The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.

It is hard to believe that a man is telling the truth when you know that you would lie if you were in his place.

On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their hearts desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.

Each party steals so many articles of faith from the other, and the candidates spend so much time making each others speeches, that by the time election day is past there is nothing much to do save turn the sitting rascals out and let a new gang in.

Bachelors know more about women than married men if they didnt theyd be married too.

For it is mutual trust, even more than mutual interest that holds human associations together. Our friends seldom profit us but they make us feel safe. Marriage is a scheme to accomplish exactly that same end.

Whenever a husband and wife begin to discuss their marriage they are giving evidence at a coroners inquest.

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

Say what you will about the ten commandments, you must always come back to the pleasant fact that there are only ten of them.

It is even harder for the average ape to believe that he has descended from man.

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 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.

One of the most mawkish of human delusions is the notion that friendship should be eternal, or, at all events, life-long, and that any act which puts a term to it is somehow discreditable.

The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out... without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, intolerable.

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.

I believe that all government is evil, and that trying to improve it is largely a waste of time.

All government, of course, is against liberty.

War will never cease until babies begin to come into the world with larger cerebrums and smaller adrenal glands.

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

Poetry has done enough when it charms, but prose must also convince.