1,045 Quotes by H. L. Mencken

The only way to success in American public life lies in flattering and kowtowing to the mob

In my day a reporter who took an assignment was wholly on his own until he got back to the office, and even then he was little molested until his copy was turned in at the desk; today he tends to become only a homunculus at the end of a telephone wire, and the reduction of his observations to prose is commonly farmed out to literary castrati who never leave the office, and hence never feel the wind of the world in their faces or see anything with their own eyes.

When women kiss it always reminds one of prize fighters shaking hands.

A bad man is the sort who weeps every time he speaks of a good woman.

God is the immemorial refuge of the incompetent, the helpless, and 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.

After all, all he did was string together a lot of old, well-known quotations.

The genuine music lover may accept the carnal husk of opera to get at the kernel of actual music within, but that is no sign that he approves the carnal husk or enjoys gnawing through it.

[Government's] great contribution to human wisdom...is the discovery that the taxpayer has more than one pocket.

At eight or nine, I suppose intelligence is no more than a small spot of light on the floor of a large and murky room.