H.L. Mencken Quotes

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

"There is only one honest impulse at the bottom of Puritanism, and that is the impulse to punish the man with a superior capacity for happiness"

"As the arteries grow hard, the heart grows soft."

"Historian -- an unsuccessful novelist."

"In order to teach chemistry or psychology or even history or Greek a man must actually know something, but for the teacher of English nothing seems to be necessary beyond a crude capacity to read and write"

"A home is not a mere transient shelter: its essence lies in the personalities of the people who live in it"

"A gentlemen is one who never strikes a woman without provocation."

"Injustice is relatively easy to bear what stings is justice."

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

"A judge is a law student who grades his own papers."

"The idea that leisure is of value in itself is only conditionally true. The average man simply spends his leisure as a dog spends it. His recreations are all puerile, and the time supposed to benefit him really only stupefies him."

"Most people want security in this world, not liberty."

"The truth that survives is simply the lie that is pleasantest to believe."

"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."

"If I ever marry it will be on a sudden impulse, as a man shoots himself."

"Whenever a husband and wife begin to discuss their marriage they are giving evidence at a coroner's inquest."

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

"But I wonder where we will land if trial Judges begin deciding that the fact that a man has committed an atrocious crime is proof sufficient that he is not responsible for his acts"

"On one issue, at least, men and women agree: they both distrust women"

"After all, all he did was string together a lot of old, well-known quotations."