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H. L. Mencken

H. L. Mencken Quotes

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Famous H. L. Mencken Quotes

“All that the Y.M.C.A.'s horse and rings really accomplished was to fill me with an ineradicable distaste, not only for Christian endeavor in all its forms, but also for every variety of calisthenics, so that I still begrudge the trifling exertion needed to climb in and out of a bathtub, and hate all sports as rabidly as a person who likes sports hates common sense. If I had my way no man guilty of golf would be eligible to any office of trust or profit under the United States, and all female athletes would be shipped to the white-slave corrals of the Argentine.”

IfsMenWayPersonsStillsStatesWould BeChristianFormHateSportsWhiteUnitedCommonUnited StatesNeededExerciseOfficeFemaleHorseGolfSlaveAthleteProfitRingsLikesCommon SenseGuiltyVarietyMy WayAccomplishedClimbsEndeavorExertionTriflingBathtubsDistasteFemale AthleteCalisthenics
Author:H. L. Mencken
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“Man is the yokel par excellence, the booby unmatchable, the king dupe of the cosmos. He is chronically and unescapably deceived, not only by the other animals and by the delusive face of nature herself--by his incomparable talent for searching out and embracing what is false, and for overlooking and denying what is true.”

MenFacesAnimalMankindTalentKingsExcellenceCosmosDelusionDeceivedIncomparableTrue ManDupesOverlooking
Book:Prejudices: Third Series
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“The aim of poetry, it appears, is to fill the mind with lofty thoughts--not to give it joy, but to give it a grand and somewhat gaudy sense of virtue. The essay is a weapon against the degenerate tendencies of the age. The novel, properly conceived, is a means of uplifting the spirit; its aim is to inspire, not merely to satisfy the low curiosity of man in man.”

MenGivingMindMeanAgeJoySpiritLiteratureNovelVirtueInspireWeaponsLowsAimCuriosityTendenciesUpliftingEssaysLoftyDegeneratesAmerican LiteratureGaudy
Book:H.L. Mencken: Prejudices: First, Second, and Third Series
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“The Puritan, of course, is not entirely devoid of aesthetic feeling. He has a taste for good form; he responds to style; he is even capable of something approaching a purely aesthetic emotion. But he fears this aesthetic emotion as an insinuating distraction from his chief business in life: the sober consideration of the all-important problem of conduct. Art is a temptation, a seduction, a Lorelei, and the Good Man may safely have traffic with it when it is broken to moral uses--in other words, when its innocence is pumped out of it, and it is purged of gusto.”

MenMayArtImportantUseFeelingsProblemFormCoursesLiteratureEmotionMoralStyleBrokenTasteCapableArt IsTemptationChiefsInnocenceConsiderationGood ManDistractionAestheticTrafficSoberSeductionPuritanAmerican LiteratureGusto
Book:Prejudices Second Series
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“Such is the art of writing as Dreiser understands it and practices it--an endless piling up of minutiae, an almost ferocious tracking down of ions, electrons and molecules, an unshakable determination to tell it all. One is amazed by the mole-like diligence of the man, and no less by his exasperating disregard for the ease of his readers.”

MenWritingArtLiteraturePracticeHe ManReaderDeterminationEndlessEaseAmazedDiligenceDisregardMoleculesElectronsAmerican LiteratureUnshakableMolesTrackingArt Of WritingMinutiaeIons
Author:H. L. Mencken
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“What are the characters that I discern most clearly in the so-called Anglo-Saxon type of man? I may answer at once that two stickout above all others. One is his curious and apparently incurable incompetence--his congenital inability to do any difficult thing easily and well, whether it be isolating a bacillus or writing a sonata. The other is his astounding susceptibility to fears and alarms--in short, his hereditary cowardice.... There is no record in history of any Anglo-Saxon nation entering upon any great war without allies.”

MenWritingWellsMayTwoWarCharacterNationsDifficultAnswersRecordsTypeCuriousAlliesCowardiceEnteringInabilityAlarmsDifficult ThingsIncompetenceGreat WarHereditaryAnglo SaxonSusceptibilitySonatas
Book:Mencken Chrestomathy
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“...no man of genuinely superior intelligence has ever been an actor. Even supposing a young man of appreciable mental powers to be lured upon the stage, as philosophers are occasionally lured into bordellos, his mind would be inevitably and almost immediately destroyed by the gaudy nonsense issuing from his mouth every night.”

MenMindWould BeYoungNightActorsStageMouthsPhilosopherSuperiorsDestroyedYoung ManNonsenseEvery NightSupposingMental PowerGaudySuperior Intelligence
Book:PREJUDICES A SELECTION
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“A mood of constructive criticism being upon me, I propose forthwith that the method of choosing legislators now prevailing in the United States be abandoned and that the method used in choosing juries be substituted. That is to say, I propose that the men who make our laws be chosen by chance and against will of all the rest of us, as now.”

MenStatesLawUsedChanceUnitedUnited StatesHe ManCriticismMethodMoodChosenAbandonedConstructiveProposeJuryLegislatorsPrevailingConstructive Criticism
Author:H. L. Mencken
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“All the great enterprises of the world are run by a few smart men: their aides and associates run down by rapid stages to the level of sheer morons. Everyone knows that this is true of government, but we often forget that it is equally true of private undertakings. In the average great bank, or railroad, or other corporation the burden of management lies upon a small group. The rest are ciphers.”

KnowsMenWorldGovernmentRunningLyingForgetLevelsGroupsStageSmartManagementAverageBurdenCorporationsEnterpriseSheerAssociatesRapidsUndertakingsMoronRailroadsSmall GroupsCiphersSmart Man
Book:Minority Report
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“Liberty is of small value to the lower third of humanity. They greatly prefer security, which means protection by some class above them. They are always in favor of despots who promise to feed them. The only liberty an inferior man really cherishes is the liberty to quit work, stretch out in the sun, and scratch himself.”

MenMeanValuesHumanityLibertyClassSunSecurityPromiseThirdsProtectionFavorsQuittingCherishInferiorsScratchesDespots
Book:Minority Report
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“What reason is there for believing that a high death rate, in itself, is undesirable? To my knowledge none whatever. The plain fact is that, if it be suitably selective, it is extremely salubrious. Suppose it could be so arranged that it ran to 100% a year among politicians, executive secretaries, drive chairmen, and the homicidally insane? What rational man would object?”

IfsMenYearsBelieveReasonFactsObjectsPoliticianRateRationalInsaneRanExecutivesSecretaryChairmanSelectiveUndesirable
Book:Mencken Chrestomathy
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“I hope I need not confess that a large part of my stock in trade consists of platitudes rescued from the cobwebbed shelves of yesterday... This borrowing and refurbishing of shop-worn goods, as a matter of fact, is the invariable habit of traders in ideas, at all times and everywhere. It is not, however, that all the conceivable human notions have been thought out; it is simply, to be quite honest, that the sort of men who volunteer to think out new ones seldom, if ever, have wind enough for a full day's work.”

IfsThinkingMenNeedsHumansHas BeensIdeasMatterEnoughFactsHonestWindHabitTradeNotionYesterdayAll TimeShopsGoodsWornVolunteerShelvesMatter Of FactBorrowingTradersPlatitudes
Book:In Defense of Women: Human Sexuality
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“Politics, under a democracy, reduces itself to a mere struggle for office by flatterers of the proletariat; even when a superior man prevails at that disgusting game he must prevail at the cost of his self-respect. Not many superior men make the attempt. The average great captain of the rabble, when he is not simply a weeper over irremediable wrongs, is a hypocrite so far gone that he is unconscious of his own hypocrisy.. a slimy fellow, offensive to the nose.”

MenSelfGamesStruggleGoneDemocracyCostOfficeFellowsMereAverageSuperiorsNosesHypocrisyUnconsciousSelf RespectDisgustingCaptainsOffensiveHypocriteProletariatSuperior ManFlattererSo Far Gone
Author:H. L. Mencken
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“Of all the human qualities, the one I admire the most is competence. A tailor who is really able to cut and fit a coat seems to me an admirable man, and by the same token a university professor who knows little or nothing of the thing he presumes to teach seems to me to be a fraud and a rascal.”

KnowsMenHumansLittlesSeemsAbleQualityTeachCuttingFitUniversityAdmireProfessorsFraudCoatsCompetenceAdmirableTokensTailorsRascalsHuman QualitiesUniversity Professors
Book:Minority Report
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