black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

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

H. L. Mencken

The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all; it is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed a standard citizenry, to put down dissent and originality.
H. L. MENCKEN

Citizenship Education Learning Liberty Possible Reality Simplicity
When fanatics are on top there is no limit to oppression.
H. L. MENCKEN

Limitation Oppression Power War
No one in this world, so far as I know – and I have searched the records for years, and employed agents to help me – has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people.
H. L. MENCKEN

Greatness Help Intelligence Lost Money Oneself People Search World
Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule—and both commonly succeed, and are right.
H. L. MENCKEN

Democracy Freedom Right Rule Success War
A church is a place in which gentlemen who have never been to Heaven brag about it to persons who will never get there.
H. L. MENCKEN

Funny Heaven Humor Person Place
Most people want security in this world, not liberty.
H. L. MENCKEN

Deep Freedom Liberty People Security
A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin.
H. L. MENCKEN

Death Flower Funny Humor
The final test of truth is ridicule. Very few dogmas have ever faced it and survived.
H. L. MENCKEN

Face Survive Truth
Socialist: A man suffering from an overwhelming conviction to believe what is not true.
H. L. MENCKEN

Believe Men Suffering True
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

Ideal Myself Rose
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.
H. L. MENCKEN

Democracy End Freedom Government Imagination Policy Practice Safety
Always remember this: If you don’t attend the funerals of your friends, they will certainly not attend yours.
H. L. MENCKEN

Age Friendship Remember Yourself
When somebody says it’s not about the money, it’s about the money.
H. L. MENCKEN

Deep Money
Evangelical Christianity, as everyone knows, is founded upon hate, as the Christianity of Christ was founded upon love.
H. L. MENCKEN

Build Hate Love Religion
People do not expect to find chastity in a whorehouse. Why, then, do they expect to find honesty and humanity in government, a congeries of institutions whose modus operandi consists of lying, cheating, stealing, and if need be, murdering those who resist?
H. L. MENCKEN

Cheating Expectation Government Honesty Humanity Lying Need People Resistance
A sense of humor always withers in the presence of the messianic delusion, like justice and the truth in front of patriotic passion.
H. L. MENCKEN

Humor Justice Passion Patriot Presence

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

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More H. L. Mencken Quotes