black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

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

H. L. Mencken

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
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

Fight Government People Wrong
The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one’s time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.
H. L. MENCKEN

Beginning Fight Freedom Human Law Oppression Stop Time
A judge is a law student who marks his own examination papers.
H. L. MENCKEN

Funny Justice Law Student
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
A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin.
H. L. MENCKEN

Death Flower Funny Humor
Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under.
H. L. MENCKEN

Freedom Government Integrity Live Men Shame
A man may be a fool and not know it, but not if he is married.
H. L. MENCKEN

Fools Funny Himself Man Marriage
You can’t do anything about the length of your life, but you can do something about its width and depth.
H. L. MENCKEN

Deep Inspirational Life Philosophy Worth Yourself
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

Citizenship Liberty Lost People War
The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out for himself.
H. L. MENCKEN

Danger Government Himself Men Thinking
It is the classic fallacy of our time that a moron run through a university and decorated with a Ph.D. will thereby cease to be a moron.
H. L. MENCKEN

Education Ourselves Run Time
Don’t overestimate the decency of the human race.
H. L. MENCKEN

Dignity Human Race
The kind of man who demands that government enforce his ideas is always the kind whose ideas are idiotic.
H. L. MENCKEN

Freedom Government Ideas Kind Men
Free speech is too dangerous to a democracy to be permitted.
H. L. MENCKEN

Danger Democracy Freedom Scare
Sometimes the idiots outvote the sensible people.
H. L. MENCKEN

Democracy People Vote

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

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More H. L. Mencken Quotes