H. L. Mencken Quotes

A man always remembers his first love with special tenderness, but after that he begins to bunch them.

In this world of sin and sorrow there is always something to be thankful for; as for me, I rejoice that I am not a Republican.

Most people want security in this world, not liberty.

In war the heroes always outnumber the soldiers ten to one.

We must respect the other fellow’s religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart.

Husbands never become good; they merely become proficient.

The common argument that crime is caused by poverty is a kind of slander on the poor.

Women have simple tastes. They get pleasure out of the conversation of children in arms and men in love.

War will never cease until babies begin to come into the world with larger cerebrums and smaller adrenal glands.

When a new source of taxation is found it never means, in practice, that the old source is abandoned. It merely means that the politicians have two ways of milking the taxpayer where they had one before.

The most costly of all follies is to believe passionately in the palpably not true. It is the chief occupation of mankind.

Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.

There are men so philosophical that they can see humor in their own toothaches. But there has never lived a man so philosophical that he could see the toothache in his own humor.

The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.