1,045 Quotes by H. L. Mencken

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.

When I die, I shall be content to vanish into nothingness.... No show, however good, could conceivably be good forever I do not believe in immortality, and have no desire for it.

The music critic, Huneber, could never quite make up his mind about a new symphony until he had seen the composer's mistress.

Writing books is certainly a most unpleasant occupation. It is lonesome, unsanitary, and maddening. Many authors go crazy.

In war the heroes always outnumber the soldiers ten to one.

A skeptic as to all ideas, including especially my own, I have never suffered a pang when the ideas of some other imbecile prevailed.

The only way to reconcile science and religion is to set up something which is not science and something that is not religion.

Democracy must be a sound scheme at bottom, else it would not survive such cruel strains.

The essence of science is that it is always willing to abandon a given idea for a better one; the essence of theology is that it holds its truths to be eternal and immutable.