H. L. Mencken Quotes

It is impossible to imagine Goethe or Beethoven being good at billiards or golf.
H. L. Mencken

Good, Impossible, Golf

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

Work, Body, Temptation

A prohibitionist is the sort of man one couldn't care to drink with, even if he drank.
H. L. Mencken

Care, Drink, Drank

The chief value of money lies in the fact that one lives in a world in which it is overestimated.
H. L. Mencken

Money, Fact, Lives

Theology is the effort to explain the unknowable in terms of the not worth knowing.
H. L. Mencken

Effort, Worth, Knowing

What men value in this world is not rights but privileges.
H. L. Mencken

Men, Rights, Value

Conscience is the inner voice that warns us that someone might be looking.
H. L. Mencken

Someone, Conscience, Looking

We are here and it is now. Further than that, all human knowledge is moonshine.
H. L. Mencken

Knowledge, Human, Here

A bad man is the sort who weeps every time he speaks of a good woman.
H. L. Mencken

Time, Good, Bad

Every man is his own hell.
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

Feeling, Giving, Write

Life is a constant oscillation between the sharp horns of dilemmas.
H. L. Mencken

Life, Between, Constant

Morality is the theory that every human act must be either right or wrong, and that 99 % of them are wrong.
H. L. Mencken

Human, Wrong, Act

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, Heart, Last

One may no more live in the world without picking up the moral prejudices of the world than one will be able to go to hell without perspiring.
H. L. Mencken

Live, May, Hell

Archbishop - A Christian ecclesiastic of a rank superior to that attained by Christ.
H. L. Mencken

Christian, Christ, Superior

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

Good, Become, Husbands

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

Working, Same, Reason

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

Until, Cigarette, Nine

Injustice is relatively easy to bear; what sting is justice.
H. L. Mencken

Justice, Easy, Injustice

It is hard for the ape to believe he descended from man.
H. L. Mencken

Hard, Ape, Descended

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

History, Age, Lie

Most people are unable to write because they are unable to think, and they are unable to think because they congenitally lack the equipment to do so, just as they congenitally lack the equipment to fly over the moon.
H. L. Mencken

Write, Moon, Lack

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.
H. L. Mencken

Life, Truth, Times

Opera in English is, in the main, just about as sensible as baseball in Italian.
H. L. Mencken

Baseball, Sensible, English

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Biography

Nationality: American

Type: Writer

Born: September 12, 1880

Died: January 29, 1956

Links

Find on Amazon: H. L. Mencken

Cite this Page: Citation

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