1,045 Quotes by H. L. Mencken

The chief business of the nation, as a nation, is the setting up of heroes, mainly bogus.

I am a strict monogamist: it is twenty years since I last went to bed with two women at once, and then I was in my cups and not myself.

The seasick passenger on an ocean liner detests the good sailor who stalks past him 265 times a day grandly smoking a large, greasy cigar. In precisely the same way the democrat hates the man who is having a better time in the world. This is the origin of democracy. It is also the origin of Puritanism.

I believe that any man who takes the liberty of another into his keeping is bound to become a tyrant, and that any man who yields up his liberty, in however slight the measure, is bound to become a slave.

Marriage is a wonderful institution, but who would want to live in an institution?

The Christian church, in its attitude toward science, shows the mind of a more or less enlightened man of the Thirteenth Century. It no longer believes that the earth is flat, but it is still convinced that prayer can cure after medicine fails.

Religion is "so absurd that it comes close to imbecility."

The great secret of happiness in love is to be glad that the other fellow married her.

No reporter of my generation, whatever his genius, ever really rated spats and a walking stick until he had covered both a lynching and a revolution.