H. L. Mencken
69 quotations
The only cure for contempt is counter-contempt.
The older I grow the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom.
Don't overestimate the decency of the human race.
The cure for the evils of democracy is more democracy.
Democracy is also a form of religion. It is the worship of jackals by jackasses.
I confess I enjoy democracy immensely. It is incomparably idiotic, and hence incomparably amusing.
The lunatic fringe wags the underdog.
It is hard for the ape to believe he descended from man.
Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable.
A celebrity is one who is known to many persons he is glad he doesn't know.
No one hates his job so heartily as a farmer.
We must be willing to pay a price for freedom.
A gentlemen is one who never strikes a woman without provocation.
On one issue at least, men and women agree; they both distrust women.
A prohibitionist is the sort of man one couldn't care to drink with, even if he drank.
Alimony -- the ransom that the happy pay to the devil.
As the arteries grow hard, the heart grows soft.
In war the heroes always outnumber the soldiers ten to one.
Historian -- an unsuccessful novelist.
Honor is simply the morality of superior men.
Man is a beautiful machine that works very badly.
Husbands never become good; they merely become proficient.
Injustice is relatively easy to bear what stings is justice.
When women kiss it always reminds one of prize-fighters shaking hands.
Man weeps to think that he will die so soon; woman, that she was born so long ago.