H.L. Mencken Quotes

"It is a peculiarity of the American mind that it regards any excursion into the truth as an adventure into cynicism"

"I go on working for the same reason that a hen goes on laying eggs."

"Every man is thoroughly happy twice in his life: just after he has met his first love, and just after he has left his last one"

"The older I grow the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom."

"Old age ain't no place for sissies."

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

"The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all; it is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed a standard citizenry, to put down dissent and originality"

"The world always makes the assumption that the exposure of an error is identical with the discovery of truth--that the error and truth are simply opposite. They are nothing of the sort. What the world turns to, when it is cured on one error, is usu"

"The ideal way to get rid of any infectious disease would be to shoot instantly every person who comes down with it"

"A man loses his sense of direction after four drinks; a woman loses hers after four kisses"

"To expect defeat is nine-tenths of defeat itself."

"School days, I believe, are the unhappiest in the whole span of human existence."

"During many a single week, I daresay, more money is spent in New York upon useless and evil things than would suffice to run the kingdom of Denmark for a year"

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

"It is hard for the ape to believe he descended from man."

"No matter how happily a woman may be married, it always pleases her to discover that there is a nice man who wishes that she were not."

"Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence."

"To be in love is merely to be in a perpetual state of anesthesia."

"The cynics are right nine times out of ten."

"A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin."