1,045 Quotes by H. L. Mencken

The worst government is the most moral.

I believe that religion, generally speaking, has been a curse to mankind - that its modest and greatly overestimated services on the ethical side have been more than overcome by the damage it has done to clear and honest thinking.

What reason is there for believing that a high death rate, in itself, is undesirable? To my knowledge none whatever. The plain fact is that, if it be suitably selective, it is extremely salubrious. Suppose it could be so arranged that it ran to 100% a year among politicians, executive secretaries, drive chairmen, and the homicidally insane? What rational man would object?

My guess is that well over eighty per cent. of the human race goes through life without having a single original thought..

There is a saying in Baltimore that crabs may be prepared in fifty ways and that all of them are good.

No form of liberty is worth a darn [sic] which doesn't give us the right to do wrong now and then.

Journalism is to politician as dog is to lamp-post.

The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out... without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, intolerable.

Why writers write I do not know. As well ask why a hen lays an egg or why a cow stands patiently while an underprivileged farmer burglarizes her.