1,045 Quotes by H. L. Mencken

The objection to a Communist always resolves itself into the fact that he is not a gentleman.

If there had been any formidable body of cannibals in the country, Harry Truman would have promised to provide them with free missionaries fattened at the taxpayer's expense.

A society made up of individuals who were all capable of original thought would probably be unendurable.

The intelligent, like the unintelligent, are responsive to propaganda.

Philosophy consists very largely of one philosopher arguing that all others are jackasses. He usually proves it, and I should add that he also usually proves that he is one himself.

Love is photogenic. It needs darkness room to develop

There are two kinds of books. Those that no one reads and those that no one ought to read.

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

I never smoked a cigarette until I was nine.