Quotes By H. L. Mencken

I never smoked a cigarette until I was nine.

Man is a beautiful machine that works very badly.

To be in love is merely to be in a state of perceptual anesthesia - to mistake an ordinary young woman for a goddess.

The common argument that crime is caused by poverty is a kind of slander on the poor.

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

Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under.

Husbands never become good; they merely become proficient.

A society made up of individuals who were all capable of original thought would probably be unendurable.

Nine times out of ten, in the arts as in life, there is actually no truth to be discovered; there is only error to be exposed.

Man is always looking for someone to boast to; woman is always looking for a shoulder to put her head on.

The theory seems to be that as long as a man is a failure he is one of God's children, but that as soon as he succeeds he is taken over by the Devil.

Temptation is an irresistible force at work on a movable body.

An idealist is one who, on noticing that roses smell better than a cabbage, concludes that it will also make better soup.

Self-respect: the secure feeling that no one, as yet, is suspicious.

A man may be a fool and not know it, but not if he is married.

The opera is to music what a bawdy house is to a cathedral.

Whenever you hear a man speak of his love for his country, it is a sign that he expects to be paid for it.

There are men so philosophical that they can see humor in their own toothaches. But there has never lived a man so philosophical that he could see the toothache in his own humor.

It is inaccurate to say that I hate everything. I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty, and common decency. This makes me forever ineligible for public office.

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

In war the heroes always outnumber the soldiers ten to one.

I never lecture, not because I am shy or a bad speaker, but simply because I detest the sort of people who go to lectures and don't want to meet them.

Democracy is also a form of worship. It is the worship of Jackals by Jackasses.

No matter how happily a woman may be married, it always pleases her to discover that there is a nice man who wishes that she were not.

Legend: A lie that has attained the dignity of age.

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

We must be willing to pay a price for freedom.

Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable.

Every man is his own hell.

Communism, like any other revealed religion, is largely made up of prophecies.