1,045 Quotes by H. L. Mencken

It is Hell, of course, that makes priests powerful, not Heaven, for after thousands of years of so-called civilization fear remains the one common denominator of mankind.

To wage a war for a purely moral reason is as absurd as to ravish a woman for a purely moral reason.

Pastor: One employed by the wicked to prove to them by his example that virtue doesn’t pay.

The notion that artists flourish upon adversity and misunderstanding, that they are able to function to the utmost in an atmosphere of indifference or hostility – this notion is nine-tenths nonsense.

A man’s satisfaction with his salary depends on whether he makes more than his wife’s sister’s husband.

A critic is a man who writes about things he doesn’t like.

The Jews fastened their religion upon the Western world, not because it was more reasonable than the religions of their contemporaries – as a matter of fact, it was vastly less reasonable than many of them – but because it was far more poetical.

What restrains us from killing is partly fear of punishment, partly moral scruple, and partly what may be described as a sense of humor.

Taxation, for example, is eternally lively; it concerns nine-tenths of us more directly than either smallpox or golf, and has just as much drama in it; moreover, it has been mellowed and made gay by as many gaudy, preposterous theories.