Dictionary De - En
De - Es
De - Pt| Proverbs, aphorisms, quotations (English) | by Linux fortune |
| H. L. Mencken suffers from the hallucination that he is H. L. Mencken -- there is no cure for a disease of that magnitude. -- Maxwell Bodenheim | |
| The capacity of human beings to bore one another seems to be vastly greater than that of any other animals. Some of their most esteemed inventions have no other apparent purpose, for example, the dinner party of more than two, the epic poem, and the science of metaphysics. -- H. L. Mencken | |
| After all, all he did was string together a lot of old, well-known quotations. -- H.L. Mencken, on Shakespeare | |
| "I go on working for the same reason a hen goes on laying eggs." - H. L. Mencken | |
| For every problem there is one solution which is simple, neat, and wrong. -- H. L. Mencken | |
| Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurence of the improbable. - H. L. Mencken | |
| The truth is that Christian theology, like every other theology, is not only opposed to the scientific spirit; it is also opposed to all other attempts at rational thinking. Not by accident does Genesis 3 make the father of knowledge a serpent -- slimy, sneaking and abominable. Since the earliest days the church as an organization has thrown itself violently against every effort to liberate the body and mind of man. It has been, at all times and everywhere, the habitual and incorrigible defender of bad governments, bad laws, bad social theories, bad institutions. It was, for centuries, an apologist for slavery, as it was the apologist for the divine right of kings. - H. L. Mencken | |
| The notion that science does not concern itself with first causes -- that it leaves the field to theology or metaphysics, and confines itself to mere effects -- this notion has no support in the plain facts. If it could, science would explain the origin of life on earth at once--and there is every reason to believe that it will do so on some not too remote tomorrow. To argue that gaps in knowledge which will confront the seeker must be filled, not by patient inquiry, but by intuition or revelation, is simply to give ignorance a gratuitous and preposterous dignity.... - H. L. Mencken, 1930 | |
| The evidence of the emotions, save in cases where it has strong objective support, is really no evidence at all, for every recognizable emotion has its opposite, and if one points one way then another points the other way. Thus the familiar argument that there is an instinctive desire for immortality, and that this desire proves it to be a fact, becomes puerile when it is recalled that there is also a powerful and widespread fear of annihilation, and that this fear, on the same principle proves that there is nothing beyond the grave. Such childish "proofs" are typically theological, and they remain theological even when they are adduced by men who like to flatter themselves by believing that they are scientific gents.... - H. L. Mencken | |
| There is, in fact, no reason to believe that any given natural phenomenon, however marvelous it may seem today, will remain forever inexplicable. Soon or late the laws governing the production of life itself will be discovered in the laboratory, and man may set up business as a creator on his own account. The thing, indeed, is not only conceivable; it is even highly probable. - H. L. Mencken, 1930 | |
| "Once he had one leg in the White House and the nation trembled under his roars. Now he is a tinpot pope in the Coca-Cola belt and a brother to the forlorn pastors who belabor halfwits in galvanized iron tabernacles behind the railroad yards." - H. L. Mencken, writing of William Jennings Bryan, counsel for the supporters of Tennessee's anti-evolution law at the Scopes "Monkey Trial" in 1925. | |
| "There was a vague, unpleasant manginess about his appearence; he somehow seemed dirty, though a close glance showed him as carefully shaven as an actor, and clad in immaculate linen." -- H.L. Mencken, on the death of William Jennings Bryan | |
| Work was impossible. The geeks had broken my spirit. They had done too many things wrong. It was never like this for Mencken. He lived like a Prussian gambler -- sweating worse than Bryan on some nights and drunker than Judas on others. It was all a dehumanized nightmare...and these raddled cretins have the gall to complain about my deadlines. -- Hunter Thompson, "Bad Nerves in Fat City", _Generation of Swine_ | |
| "The only way for a reporter to look at a politician is down." -- H.L. Mencken | |
| "An idealist is one who, on noticing that a rose smells better than a cabbage, concludes that it will also make better soup." - H.L. Mencken | |
| All [zoos] actually offer to the public in return for the taxes spent upon them is a form of idle and witless amusement, compared to which a visit to a penitentiary, or even to a State legislature in session, is informing, stimulating and ennobling. -- H. L. Mencken | |
| Has the great art and mystery of politics no apparent utility? Does it appear to be unqualifiedly ratty, raffish, sordid, obscene and low down, and its salient virtuosi a gang of umitigated scoundrels? Then let us not forget its high capacity to soothe and tickel the midriff, its incomparable services as a maker of entertainment. -- H.L. Mencken, "A Carnival of Buncombe" | |
| The public demands certainties; it must be told definitely and a bit raucously that this is true and that is false. But there are no certainties. -- H.L. Mencken, "Prejudice" | |
| Unquestionably, there is progress. The average American now pays out twice as much in taxes as he formerly got in wages. -- H. L. Mencken | |
| When I hear a man applauded by the mob I always feel a pang of pity for him. All he has to do to be hissed is to live long enough. -- H.L. Mencken, "Minority Report" | |
| H. L. Mencken's Law: Those who can -- do. Those who can't -- teach. Martin's Extension: Those who cannot teach -- administrate. | |
| ink, n.: A villainous compound of tannogallate of iron, gum-arabic, and water, chiefly used to facilitate the infection of idiocy and promote intellectual crime. -- H.L. Mencken | |
| Mencken and Nathan's Fifteenth Law of The Average American: The worst actress in the company is always the manager's wife. | |
| Mencken and Nathan's Ninth Law of The Average American: The quality of a champagne is judged by the amount of noise the cork makes when it is popped. | |
| Mencken and Nathan's Second Law of The Average American: All the postmasters in small towns read all the postcards. | |
| Mencken and Nathan's Sixteenth Law of The Average American: Milking a cow is an operation demanding a special talent that is possessed only by yokels, and no person born in a large city can never hope to acquire it. | |
| A prohibitionist is the sort of man one wouldn't care to drink with -- even if he drank. -- H.L. Mencken | |
| The verdict of a jury is the a priori opinion of that juror who smokes the worst cigars. -- H. L. Mencken | |
| To be happy one must be a) well fed, unhounded by sordid cares, at ease in Zion, b) full of a comfortable feeling of superiority to the masses of one's fellow men, and c) delicately and unceasingly amused according to one's taste. It is my contention that, if this definition be accepted, there is no country in the world wherein a man constituted as I am -- a man of my peculiar weaknesses, vanities, appetites, and aversions -- can be so happy as he can be in the United States. Going further, I lay down the doctrine that it is a sheer physical impossibility for such a man to live in the United States and not be happy. -- H.L. Mencken, "On Being An American" | |
| For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong. -- H. L. 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 and chemistry. -- H.L. Mencken | |
| There is, in fact, no reason to believe that any given natural phenomenon, however marvelous it may seem today, will remain forever inexplicable. Soon or late the laws governing the production of life itself will be discovered in the laboratory, and man may set up business as a creator on his own account. The thing, indeed, is not only conceivable; it is even highly probable. -- H.L. Mencken, 1930 | |
| College football is a game which would be much more interesting if the faculty played instead of the students, and even more interesting if the trustees played. There would be a great increase in broken arms, legs, and necks, and simultaneously an appreciable diminution in the loss to humanity. -- H. L. Mencken | |
| Conscience is a mother-in-law whose visit never ends. -- H. L. Mencken | |
| Conscience is the inner voice that warns us somebody may be looking. -- H.L. Mencken, "A Mencken Chrestomathy" | |
| Evil is that which one believes of others. It is a sin to believe evil of others, but it is seldom a mistake. -- H.L. Mencken | |
| Most people are unable to write because they are unable to think, and they are unable to think because they congenitally lack the equipment to do so, just as they congenitally lack the equipment to fly over the moon. -- H.L. Mencken | |
| The older I grow, the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom. -- H.L. Mencken | |
| Once he had one leg in the White House and the nation trembled under his roars. Now he is a tinpot pope in the Coca-Cola belt and a brother to the forlorn pastors who belabor halfwits in galvanized iron tabernacles behind the railroad yards." -- H.L. Mencken, writing of William Jennings Bryan, counsel for the supporters of Tennessee's anti-evolution law at the Scopes "Monkey Trial" in 1925. | |
| The penalty for laughing in a courtroom is six months in jail; if it were not for this penalty, the jury would never hear the evidence. -- H. L. Mencken | |
| The most costly of all follies is to believe passionately in the palpably not true. It is the chief occupation of mankind. -- H.L. Mencken | |
| I go on working for the same reason a hen goes on laying eggs. -- H.L. Mencken | |
| The first Rotarian was the first man to call John the Baptist "Jack." -- H.L. Mencken | |
| Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence. -- H. L. Mencken | |
