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H. L. Mencken

75 quotes

H. L. Mencken (1880–1956) was an American journalist, essayist, satirist, and cultural critic known as the "Sage of Baltimore." A fierce defender of free speech and a sharp observer of American life, Mencken skewered politics, religion, and popular culture with a wit that remains unmatched in American journalism.

“Marriage is a wonderful institution, but who would want to live in an institution?”

— H. L. Mencken

Funny

All Quotes by H. L. Mencken

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

— H. L. Mencken

Age

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

— H. L. Mencken

Marriage

“I hate all sports as rabidly as a person who likes sports hates common sense.”

— H. L. Mencken

Sports

“On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”

— H. L. Mencken

Great

“If women believed in their husbands they would be a good deal happier and also a good deal more foolish.”

— H. L. Mencken

Good

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

— H. L. Mencken

Relationship

“Bachelors know more about women than married men if they didn't they'd be married too.”

— H. L. Mencken

Marriage

“Love is an emotion that is based on an opinion of women that is impossible for those who have had any experience with them.”

— H. L. Mencken

Experience

“The basic fact about human existence is not that it is a tragedy, but that it is a bore. It is not so much a war as an endless standing in line.”

— H. L. Mencken

Life

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

— H. L. Mencken

Fear

“A good politician is quite as unthinkable as an honest burglar.”

— H. L. Mencken

Good

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

— H. L. Mencken

Love

“The one permanent emotion of the inferior man is fear - fear of the unknown, the complex, the inexplicable. What he wants above everything else is safety.”

— H. L. Mencken

Fear

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

— H. L. Mencken

Music

“Historian: an unsuccessful novelist.”

— H. L. Mencken

History

“No one in this world has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby.”

— H. L. Mencken

Great

“It is even harder for the average ape to believe that he has descended from man.”

— H. L. Mencken

Funny

“We must be willing to pay a price for freedom.”

— H. L. Mencken

Freedom

“Honor is simply the morality of superior men.”

— H. L. Mencken

Men

“It is impossible to imagine Goethe or Beethoven being good at billiards or golf.”

— H. L. Mencken

Good