H L Mencken Quotes
Welcome to H L Mencken quotes. He was a very interesting man who came up with the most interesting thoughts that make you think. One minute I like one of his thoughts the next I dislike another. Enjoy the following thought provoking quotes.September 12, 1880 – January 29, 1956
Journalist, critic, essayist, editor and satirist
- H L MENCKEN QUOTE OF THE PAGE
It was morality that burned the books of the ancient sages, and morality that halted the free inquiry of the Golden Age and substituted for it the credulous imbecility of the Age of Faith. It was a fixed moral code and a fixed theology which robbed the human race of a thousand years by wasting them upon alchemy, heretic-burning, witchcraft and sacerdotalism. - I believe that it is better to tell the truth than a lie. I believe it is better to be free than to be a slave. And I believe it is better to know than to be ignorant.
- All government, in its essence, is a conspiracy against the superior man: its one permanent object is to oppress him and cripple him. If it be aristocratic in organization, then it seeks to protect the man who is superior only in law against the man who is superior in fact; if it be democratic, then it seeks to protect the man who is inferior in every way against both. One of its primary functions is to regiment men by force, to make them as much alike as possible and as dependent upon one another as possible, to search out and combat originality among them. All it can see in an original idea is potential change, and hence an invasion of its prerogatives. The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out for himself, without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane and intolerable, and so, if he is romantic, he tries to change it. And even if he is not romantic personally he is very apt to spread discontent among those who are.
- 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.
- A church is a place in which gentlemen who have never been to heaven brag about it to persons who will never get there.
- I go on working for the same reason that a hen goes on laying eggs.
- A newspaper is a device for making the ignorant more ignorant and the crazy crazier.
- A national political campaign is better than the best circus ever heard of, with a mass baptism and a couple of hangings thrown in.
- Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.
- All government, of course, is against liberty.
- For it is mutual trust, even more than mutual interest that holds human associations together. Our friends seldom profit us but they make us feel safe. Marriage is a scheme to accomplish exactly that same end.
- For centuries, theologians have been explaining the unknowable in terms of the-not-worth-knowing.
- Off goes the head of the king, and tyranny gives way to freedom. The change seems abysmal. Then, bit by bit, the face of freedom hardens, and by and by it is the old face of tyranny. Then another cycle, and another. But under the play of all these opposites there is something fundamental and permanent — the basic delusion that men may be governed and yet be free.
- I believe in only one thing: liberty; but I do not believe in liberty enough to want to force it upon anyone.
- It is impossible to imagine the universe run by a wise, just and omnipotent God, but it is quite easy to imagine it run by a board of gods.
- A politician is an animal which can sit on a fence and yet keep both ears to the ground.
- Civilization, in fact, grows more and more maudlin and hysterical; especially under democracy it tends to degenerate into a mere combat of crazes; the whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.
- I write in order to attain that feeling of tension relieved and function achieved which a cow enjoys on giving milk.
- It doesn't take a majority to make a rebellion; it takes only a few determined leaders and a sound cause.
- A Sunday school is a prison in which children do penance for the evil conscience of their parents.
- Truth would quickly cease to be stranger than fiction, once we got as used to it.
- If, after I depart this vale, you ever remember me and have thought to please my ghost, forgive some sinner and wink your eye at some homely girl.
- Every man is his own hell.
- 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.
- It is not materialism that is the chief curse of the world, as pastors teach, but idealism. Men get into trouble by taking their visions and hallucinations too seriously.
- It is even harder for the average ape to believe that he has descended from man.
- Legend: A lie that has attained the dignity of age.
Thank you for passing by my H L Mencken quotes page. What an interesting man. I either strongly agree or strongly disagree with his quotes there is no middle ground for me. Hope you enjoyed these H L Mencken quotes. Till next time.
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