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H. L. Mencken

H. L. Mencken Quotes

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Famous H. L. Mencken Quotes

“We must think of human progress, not as of something going on in the race in general, but as something going on in a small minority, perpetually beleaguered in a few walled towns. Now and then the horde of barbarians outside breaks through, and we have an armed effort to halt the process. That is, we have a Reformation, a French Revolution, a war for democracy, a Great Awakening. The minority is decimated and driven to cover. But a few survive- and a few are enough to carry on.”

ThinkingHumansWarEnoughProcessEffortRaceBreakDemocracyProgressSocietyRevolutionTownsDrivenAwakeningMinoritiesNow And ThenReformationHaltBarbariansBreak ThroughFrench RevolutionHuman ProgressHorde
Author:H. L. Mencken
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“I believe there is a limit beyond which free speech cannot go, but it's a limit that's very seldom mentioned. It's the point where free speech begins to collide with the right to privacy. I don't think there are any other conditions to free speech. I've got a right to say and believe anything I please, but I haven't got a right to press it on anybody else. .... Nobody's got a right to be a nuisance to his neighbors.”

ThinkingBelieveI BelieveFreedomLibertyRightsConditionsMediaHavensPleaseLimitsSpeechConstitutionPressesNeighborTolerancePrivacyFree SpeechNuisanceCollideRight To Privacy
Author:H. L. Mencken
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“When a candidate for public office faces the voters he does not face men of sense; he faces a mob of men whose chief distinguishing mark is the fact that they are quite incapable of weighing ideas, or even of comprehending any save the most elemental - men whose whole thinking is done in terms of emotion, and whose dominant emotion is dread of what they cannot understand. So confronted, the candidate must either bark with the pack or be lost... All the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre.”

ThinkingMenDoeIdeasDoneWholeFactsFacesLostTermEmotionHe ManOfficeMarkChiefsCandidatesVotersDreadOddsPacksDominantIncapableMediocreBarkElementalsWeighingPublic OfficeComprehendingDevious
Author:H. L. Mencken
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“I believe in only one thing and that thing is human liberty. If ever a man is to achieve anything like dignity, it can happen only if superior men are given absolute freedom to think what they want to think and say what they want to say. I am against any man and any organization which seeks to limit or deny that freedom ... the superior man can be sure of freedom only if it is given to all men.”

IfsThinkingMenWantHappensGivenAchieveDignityAbsolutesSuperiorsSuperior ManAbsolute Freedom
Author:H. L. Mencken
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“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.”

ThinkingLongBeliefImpossibleStudentsCollegeSouthFolksAcceptedTheologyEducatedGentlemanCivilizedRitualSouthernSuperstitionsCharmingRevivalSolemnCampusYmca
Author:H. L. Mencken
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“[Thomas Henry] Huxley, I believe, was the greatest Englishman of the Nineteenth Century—perhaps the greatest Englishman of all time. When one thinks of him, one thinks inevitably of such men as Goethe and Aristotle. For in him there was that rich, incomparable blend of intelligence and character, of colossal knowledge and high adventurousness, of instinctive honesty and indomitable courage which appears in mankind only once in a blue moon. There have been far greater scientists, even in England, but there has never been a scientist who was a greater man.”

ThinkingMenBelieveHas BeensCharacterI BelieveRichGreaterMankindCenturyHonestyMoonScientistEnglandBlueIntelligenceAll TimeEnglishmenNineteenth CenturyColossalIncomparableHuxleyIndomitableBlue Moon
Author:H. L. Mencken
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“One is conscious of no brave and noble earnestness in it, of no generalized passion for intellectual and spiritual adventure, of no organized determination to think things out. What is there is a highly self-conscious and insipid correctness, a bloodless respectability submergence of matter in manner--in brief, what is there is the feeble, uninspiring quality of German painting and English music.”

ThinkingSelfMatterSpiritualPassionLiteratureQualityPaintingAdventureIntellectualConsciousDeterminationBraveNobleOrganizedSelf ConsciousCorrectnessRespectabilityAmerican LiteratureEarnestnessInsipidUninspiringEnglish Music
Book:H.L. Mencken: Prejudices: First, Second, and Third Series
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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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“The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out... without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, intolerable.”

ThinkingMenGovernmentAbleLiteratureDangerousRegardLibertarianInsaneConclusionSuperstitionsTabooLimited GovernmentPrevailingFree GovernmentLimited FreedomCorrupt GovernmentDangerous ManSocial Taboos
Book:Mencken Chrestomathy
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“The average man never really thinks from end to end of his life. The mental activity of such people is only a mouthing of cliches. What they mistake for thought is simply a repetition of what they have heard. My guess is that well over 80 percent of the human race goes through life without having a single original thought.”

PeopleThinkingMenHumansWellsEndsRaceMistakeHeardActivityPercentOriginalsAveragePositive AtheismHuman RaceRepetitionClicheAverage ManOriginal Thought
Author:H. L. Mencken
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“Consider him in his highest incarnation: the university professor. What is his function? Simply to pass on to fresh generations of numskulls a body of so-called knowledge that is fragmentary, unimportant, and, in large part, untrue. His whole professional activity is circumscribed by the prejudices, vanities and avarices of his university trustees, i.e., a committee of soap-boilers, nail manufacturers, bank-directors and politicians. The moment he offends these vermin he is undone. He cannot so much as think aloud without running a risk of having them fan his pantaloons.”

ThinkingWholeMomentsBodyRunningEducationRiskGenerationsFansPoliticianActivityDirectorsFunctionPrejudiceUniversityVanityProfessorsNailsCommitteesSoapAvariceUndoneUnimportantUntrueTrusteesVerminBoilerUniversity Professors
Author:H. L. Mencken
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“I believe in only one thing and that thing is human liberty. If ever a man is to achieve anything like dignity, it can happen only if superior men are given absolute freedom to think what they want to think and say what they want to say. I am against any man and any organization which seeks to limit or deny that freedom... [and] the superior man can be sure of freedom only if it is given to all men.”

IfsThinkingMenWantBelieveHumansHappensGivenI BelieveFreedomLibertyOne ThingAchieveLimitsDignityOrganizationAbsolutesI Believe InDenySuperiorsSuperior ManAbsolute Freedom
Author:H. L. Mencken
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“It is the mission of the pedagogue, not to make his pupils think, but to make them think right, and the more nearly his own mind pulsates with the great ebbs and flows of popular delusion and emotion, the more admirably he performs his function. He may be an ass, but that is surely no demerit in a man paid to make asses of his customers.”

ThinkingMenMindMayEmotionTeachingFlowFunctionPaidMissionsCustomersAssDelusionPupilsEbb And Flow
Book:Mencken Chrestomathy
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“And what is a good citizen? Simply one who never says, does or thinks anything that is unusual. Schools are maintained in order to bring this uniformity up to the highest possible point. A school is a hopper into which children are heaved while they are still young and tender; therein they are pressed into certain standard shapes and covered from head to heels with official rubber-stamps.”

ThinkingChildrenDoeStillsSchoolYoungCertainOrderPoliticsCitizensShapesHighestStandardsOfficialsConformityCoveredUnusualHeelsStampsRubberUniformityPeer PressureGood Citizen
Author:H. L. Mencken
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“The time must come inevitably when mankind shall surmount the imbecility of religion, as it has surmounted the imbecility of religion's ally, magic. It is impossible to imagine this world being really civilized so long as so much nonsense survives. In even its highest forms religion embraces concepts that run counter to all common sense. It can be defended only by making assumptions and adopting rules of logic that are never heard of in any other field of human thinking.”

ThinkingWorldHumansLongRunningFormCommonImagineImpossibleMagicHeardMankindFieldsThis WorldHighestConceptsLogicEmbraceCommon SenseAssumptionNonsenseCivilizedAlliesBeing RealAdoptingImbecility
Author:H. L. Mencken
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