Henry Louis Mencken quotes

“A national political campaign is better than the best circus ever heard of, with a mass baptism and a couple of hangings thrown in.”

— Henry Louis Mencken

“Love is the delusion that one woman differs from another.”

— Henry Louis Mencken

“It doesn't take a majority to make a rebellion; it takes only a few determined leaders and a sound cause.”

— Henry Louis Mencken

“Immorality: the morality of those who are having a better time.”

— Henry Louis Mencken

“The older I grow the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom.”

— Henry Louis Mencken

“No one in this world, so far as I know - and I have searched the records for years, and employed agents to help me - has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people.”

— Henry Louis Mencken

“Honor is simply the morality of superior men.”

— Henry Louis Mencken

“Puritanism. The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.”

— Henry Louis Mencken

“It is now quite lawful for a Catholic woman to avoid pregnancy by a resort to mathematics, though she is still forbidden to resort to physics or chemistry.”

— Henry Louis Mencken

“An idealist is one who, on noticing that roses smell better than a cabbage, concludes that it will also make better soup.”

— Henry Louis Mencken

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

— Henry Louis Mencken

“Before a man speaks it is always safe to assume that he is a fool. After he speaks, it is seldom necessary to assume it.”

— Henry Louis Mencken

“No married man is genuinely happy if he has to drink worse whisky than he used to drink when he was single.”

— Henry Louis Mencken

“Man is a beautiful machine that works very badly.”

— Henry Louis Mencken

“No matter how long he lives, no man ever becomes as wise as the average woman of forty-eight.”

— Henry Louis Mencken

“Democracy is also a form of worship. It is the worship of Jackals by Jackasses.”

— Henry Louis Mencken

“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.”

— Henry Louis Mencken

“I believe that all government is evil, and that trying to improve it is largely a waste of time.”

— Henry Louis Mencken

“The basic fact about human existence is not that it is a tragedy, but that it is a bore. It is not so much a war as an endless standing in line.”

— Henry Louis Mencken