1,045 Quotes by H. L. Mencken

The aim of New Deals is to exterminate the class of creditors and thrust all men into that of debtors. It is like trying to breedcattle with all cows and no bulls.

Government, like any other organism, refuses to acquiesce in its own extinction. This refusal, of course, involves the resistance to any effort to diminish its powers and prerogatives.

What fetched me instantly (and thousands of other newcomers with me) was the subtle but unmistakable sense of escape from the United States.

As the arteries grow hard, the heart grows soft.

There is no record in history of a happy philosopher.

One smart reader is worth a thousand boneheads.

A man full of faith is simply one who has lost the capacity for clear and realistic thought.

It is the dull man who is always sure, and the sure man who is always dull.

Conscience is the accumulated sediment of ancestral faint- heartedness