Skip to content

God is the immemorial refuge of the incompetent, the helpless, the miserable. They find not only sanctuary in His arms, but also a kind of superiority, soothing to their macerated egos: He will set them above their betters.

— H. L. Mencken Minority Report : H.L. Mencken's Notebooks (1956)

Another quote →

Topics

God

More quotes by H. L. Mencken

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.

All H. L. Mencken quotes →

You may also like

Most intellectual people do not believe in God, but they fear him just the same.

Wilhelm Reich Philosophy : An Introduction to the Art of Wondering (2005)

When the mind is not dissipated upon extraneous things, nor diffused over the world about us through the senses, it withdraws within itself, and of its own accord ascends to the contemplation of God.

Basil of Caesarea

Once you accept the existence of God — however you define him, however you explain your relationship to him — then you are caught forever with his presence in the center of all things.

Morris West The Clowns of God (1981)

God seeks comrades and claims love,
the Devil seeks slaves and claims obedience.

Rabindranath Tagore Fireflies (1928)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: H. L. Mencken (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.