1,045 Quotes by H. L. Mencken

The fact that a human brain of high amperage, otherwise highly efficient, may have a hole in it is surely not a secret.

No politician is ever benefited by saving money; it is spending it that makes him.

Absence is the dark-room in which lovers develop negatives.

On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.

The common argument that crime is caused by poverty is a kind of slander on the poor.

As long as the Southern colleges have revivals on their campuses and students get converted to Methodism and join the YMCA and are accepted as gentlemen, it will be impossible to think of the South as civilized...The educated folk of the Old South took theology lightly, and religion to them was hardly more than a charming ritual, useful on solemn occassions.

The harsh, useful things of the world, from pulling teeth to digging potatoes, are best done by men who are as starkly sober as so many convicts in the death-house, but the lovely and useless things, the charming and exhilarating things, are best done by men with, as the phrase is, a few sheets in the wind.

Let's not burn the universities yet. After all, the damage they do might be worse.

Never argue with a man whose job depends on not being convinced.