Journalism is to politician as dog is to lamp-post.
H. L. MENCKENA man may be a fool and not know it, but not if he is married.
More H. L. Mencken Quotes
-
-
The average man does not get pleasure out of an idea because he thinks it is true; he thinks it is true because he gets pleasure out of it.
H. L. MENCKEN -
The central belief of every moron is that he is the victim of a mysterious conspiracy against his common rights and true deserts.
H. L. MENCKEN -
The chief difference between free capitalism and State socialism seems to be this: that under the former a man pursues his own advantage openly, frankly and honestly, whereas under the latter he does so hypocritically and under false pretenses.
H. L. MENCKEN -
Morality is doing what is right, no matter what you are told. Religion is doing what you are told, no matter what is right.
H. L. MENCKEN -
A professional politician is a professionally dishonorable man. In order to get anywhere near high office he has to make so many compromises and submit to so many humiliations that he becomes indistinguishable from a streetwalker.
H. L. MENCKEN -
The ideal way to get rid of any infectious disease would be to shoot instantly every person who comes down with it.
H. L. MENCKEN -
A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin.
H. L. MENCKEN -
The final test of truth is ridicule. Very few dogmas have ever faced it and survived.
H. L. MENCKEN -
There is no idea so stupid that you can’t find a professor who will believe it.
H. L. MENCKEN -
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.
H. L. MENCKEN -
There are two kinds of Europeans: The smart ones, and those who stayed behind.
H. L. MENCKEN -
Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.
H. L. MENCKEN -
You can’t do anything about the length of your life, but you can do something about its width and depth.
H. L. MENCKEN -
The 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.
H. L. MENCKEN -
Evangelical Christianity, as everyone knows, is founded upon hate, as the Christianity of Christ was founded upon love.
H. L. MENCKEN -
A judge is a law student who marks his own examination papers.
H. L. MENCKEN -
The demagogue is one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots.
H. L. MENCKEN -
Imagine the Creator as a low comedian, and at once the world becomes explicable.
H. L. MENCKEN -
It doesn’t take a majority to make a rebellion; it takes only a few determined leaders and a sound cause.
H. L. MENCKEN -
In this world of sin and sorrow there is always something to be thankful for; as for me, I rejoice that I am not a Republican.
H. L. MENCKEN -
A man may be a fool and not know it, but not if he is married.
H. L. MENCKEN -
Misogynist: A man who hates women as much as women hate one another.
H. L. MENCKEN -
There’s really no point to voting. If it made any difference, it would probably be illegal.
H. L. MENCKEN -
Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under.
H. L. MENCKEN -
If a politician found he had cannibals among his constituents, he would promise them missionaries for dinner.
H. L. MENCKEN -
Equality before the law is probably forever unattainable. It is a noble ideal, but it can never be realized, for what men value in this world is not rights but privileges.
H. L. MENCKEN