223 quotes
The average man does not get pleasure out of an idea because he thinks it is true; he thinks it is true because he gets pleasure out of it.
Damn! A Book of Calumny (1918)
No reporter of my generation, whatever his genius, ever really rated spats and a walking stick until he had covered both a lynching and revolution.
The difference between a moral man and a man of honor is that the latter regrets a discreditable act, even when it has worked and he has not been caught.
The allurement that [women] hold out to men is precisely the allurement that Cape Hatteras holds out to sailors: they are enormously dangerous and hence enormously fascinating.
Smart Set (1910)
To die for an idea; it is unquestionably noble. But how much nobler it would be if men died for ideas that were true!
Prejudices, First Series (1919)
In other words, government is a broker in pillage, and every election is sort of an advance auction sale of stolen goods.
Charting the Candidates '72 (1972)
We are here and it is now: further than that, all human knowledge is moonshine.
A Mencken Chrestomathy (1949)
Fascism is not likely to be identical with the kinds on tap in Germany, Italy and Russia; indeed, it is very apt to come in under the name of anti-Fascism.
On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.
The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
All successful newspapers are ceaselessly querulous and bellicose. They never defend anyone or anything if they can help it; if the job is forced on them, they tackle it by denouncing someone or something else.
Prejudices, First Series (1919)
If there is one mental vice, indeed, which sets off the American people from all other folks who walk the earth ... it is that of assuming that every human act must be either right or wrong, and that ninety-nine percent of them are wrong.
Smart Set (1910)
Liberty means self-reliance, it means resolution, it means enterprise, it means the capacity for doing without.
Notes on Democracy (1926)
Human life is basically a comedy.
Minority Report : H.L. Mencken's Notebooks (1956)
No man, I suppose, ever admits to himself candidly that he gets his living in a dishonourable way.
Notes on Democracy (1926)
Philadelphia is the most pecksniffian of American cities, and thus probably leads the world.
The American Language (1919)
Platitude — An idea (a) that is admitted to be true by everyone, and (b) that is not true.
A Mencken Chrestomathy (1949)
The objection to Puritans is not that they try to make us think as they do, but that they try to make us do as they think.
A Little Book in C Major (1916)
Democratic man, dreaming eternally of Utopias, is ever a prey to shibboleths.
Notes on Democracy (1926)
When women kiss, it always reminds one of prize-fighters shaking hands.
A Mencken Chrestomathy (1949)