 |
|
 |
 |
 |
H L Mencken
To sum up:...
To sum up: 1. The cosmos is a gigantic fly-wheel making 10, 000 revolutions a minute. 2. Man is a sick fly taking a...
Whenever a husband...
Whenever a husband and wife begin to discuss their marriage they are giving evidence at a coroner's...
An idealist is...
An idealist is one who, on noticing that a rose smells better than a cabbage, concludes that it is also more...
The penalty for...
The penalty for laughing in a courtroom is six months in jail; if it were not for this penalty, the jury would never...
The difference between...
The difference between a moral man and a man of honor is that the latter regrets a discreditable act even when it has...
The cure for...
The cure for the evils of democracy is more democracy.
Source: Notes on Democracy,...
The lunatic fringe...
The lunatic fringe wags the underdog.
Source: A Mencken Chrestomathy, Sententiae:...
Democracy is the...
Democracy is the theory that the common people know what They want, and deserve to get it good and...
The truth that...
The truth that survives is simply the lie that is pleasantest to believe.
Source:...
The objection of...
The objection of the scandalmonger is not that she tells of racy doings, but that she pretends to be indignant about...
Every man sees...
Every man sees in his relatives, and especially in his cousins, a series of grotesque caricatures of...
The urge to...
The urge to save humanity is almost always only a false face for the urge to rule it.
Morality is the...
Morality is the theory that every human act must be either right or wrong, and that 99 % of them are...
The world always...
The world always makes the assumption that the exposure of an error is identical with the discovery of truth--that the...
The trouble with...
The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is...
School-days, I believe,...
School-days, I believe, are the unhappiest in the whole span of human existence. They are full of dull,...
I confess I...
I confess I enjoy democracy immensely. It is incomparably idiotic, and hence incomparably...
No matter how...
No matter how happily a woman may be married, it always pleases her to discover that there is a nice man who wishes...
Unquestionably, there is...
Unquestionably, there is progress. The average American now pays out twice as much in taxes as he formerly got in...
A celebrity is...
A celebrity is one who is known to many persons he is glad he doesn't know.
Source:...