For centuries, theologians have been explaining the unknowable in terms of the-not-worth-knowing.
H. L. Mencken

For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.
H. L. Mencken

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.
H. L. Mencken

Giving every man a vote has no more made men wise and free than Christianity has made them good.
H. L. Mencken

Have you ever watched a crab on the shore crawling backward in search of the Atlantic Ocean, and missing? That's the way the mind of man operates.
H. L. Mencken

Historian: an unsuccessful novelist.
H. L. Mencken

Honor is simply the morality of superior men.
H. L. Mencken

Husbands never become good; they merely become proficient.
H. L. Mencken

I believe in only one thing: liberty; but I do not believe in liberty enough to want to force it upon anyone.
H. L. Mencken

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

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.
H. L. Mencken

I confess I enjoy democracy immensely. It is incomparably idiotic, and hence incomparably amusing.
H. L. Mencken

I go on working for the same reason that a hen goes on laying eggs.
H. L. Mencken

I hate all sports as rabidly as a person who likes sports hates common sense.
H. L. Mencken

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.
H. L. Mencken

I never smoked a cigarette until I was nine.
H. L. Mencken

I write in order to attain that feeling of tension relieved and function achieved which a cow enjoys on giving milk.
H. L. Mencken

If a politician found he had cannibals among his constituents, he would promise them missionaries for dinner.
H. L. Mencken

If women believed in their husbands they would be a good deal happier and also a good deal more foolish.
H. L. Mencken

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.
H. L. Mencken