223 quotes
It is the dull man who is always sure, and the sure man who is always dull.
The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out for himself, without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos.
Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.
Smart Set (1910)
Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable.
Prejudices, Third Series (1922)
The fact is that the average man's love of liberty is nine-tenths imaginary, exactly like his love of sense, justice and truth.
My belief is that every man after fifty-five is always ill more or less.
Mencken: A Life by Fred Hobson (1994)
School teachers, taking them by and large, are probably the most ignorant and stupid class of men in the whole group of mental workers.
The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche (1908)
Injustice is relatively easy to bear; what stings is justice.
Prejudices, Third Series (1922)
Explanations exist; they have existed for all time; there is always a well-known solution to every human problem — neat, plausible, and wrong.
Adultery is the application of democracy to love.
A Mencken Chrestomathy (1949)
There is always an easy solution to every human problem — neat, plausible, and wrong.
Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.
Prejudices, First Series (1919)
The older I grow the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom.
Prejudices, Third Series (1922)
An idealist is one who, on noticing that a rose smells better than a cabbage, concludes that it is also more nourishing.
Smart Set (1910)
Religion, after all, is nothing but an hypothesis framed to account for what is evidentially unaccounted for.
Liberty and democracy are eternal enemies, and every one knows it who has ever given any sober reflection to the matter.
But the razor edge of ridicule is turned by the tough hide of truth.
No man can get anywhere in this world in any really and endurable manner without some recourse to books.
The Evening Sun (1939)
Whenever you hear a man speak of his love for his country it is a sign that he expects to be paid for it.
Poverty is a soft pedal upon the branches of human activity, not excepting the spiritual.
A Book of Prefaces (1917)