Henry Louis Mencken was a controversialist, humorous journalist journalist, essayist, satirist, cultural critic and scholar of American English. He commented widely on the social scene, literature, music, prominent politicians and contemporary movements. He powerfully influenced U.S. fiction through the 1920s. Inspirational H. L. Mencken quotes will encourage growth in life, make you wiser and broaden your perspective.
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Most Famous H. L. Mencken Quotes
The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed and hence clamorous to be led to safety by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary H. L. Mencken
The only thing we never get enough of is love; and the only thing we never give enough of is love Henry Miller
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 H. L. Mencken
Nobody has ever measured, even poets, how much a heart can hold Zelda Fitzgerald
The men the American people admire most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest most violently are those who try to tell them the truth H. L. Mencken
I am grateful that you were born, that your love is mine, and our two lives are woven and welded together Mark Twain
The demagogue is one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots H. L. Mencken
Have enough courage to trust love one more time and always one more time Maya Angelou
The government consists of a gang of men exactly like you and me They have, taking one with another, no special talent for the business of government; they have only a talent for getting and holding office Their principal device to that end is to search out groups who pant and pine for something they can’t get and to promise to give it to them Nine times out of ten that promise is worth nothing
Lots of people want to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down Oprah Winfrey
The tenth time is made good by looting A to satisfy B In other words, the government is a broker in pillage, and every election is sort of an advance auction sale of stolen goods H. L. Mencken
If I had a flower for every time I thought of you, I could walk through my garden forever Alfred Tennyson
Morality is doing what is right, no matter what you are told. Religion is doing what you are told, no matter what is right H L Mencken
We are most alive when we are in love John Updike
The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule H. L. Mencken
The giving of love is an education in itself Eleanor Roosevelt
People do not expect to find chastity in a whorehouse Why, then, do they expect to find honesty and humanity in government, a congeries of institutions whose modus operandi consists of lying, cheating, stealing, and if need be, murdering those who resist? H. L. Mencken
We’re all a little weird, and life’s a little weird And when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall in mutual weirdness and call it LOVE Dr. Seuss
Socialist A man suffering from an overwhelming conviction to believe what is not true H. L. Mencken
If you live to be a hundred, I want to live to be a hundred minus one day so I never have to live without you A. A. Milne
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 H. L. Mencken
I love her and that’s the beginning and end of everything F. Scott Fitzgerald
It is the classic fallacy of our time that a moron run through a university and decorated with a Ph.D. will their
I wish you to know that you have been the last dream of my soul Charles Dickens
Under democracy, one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule and both commonly succeed, and are right H. L. Mencken
It was love at first sight, at last sight, at ever and ever sight Vladimir Nabokov
Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats H. L. Mencken
Who being loved, is poor? Oscar Wilde
The plain fact is that education is itself a form of propaganda a deliberate scheme to outfit the pupil, not with the capacity to weigh ideas, but with a simple appetite for gulping ideas ready made The aim is to make good citizens, which is to say, docile and uninquisitive citizens H. L. Mencken
I love you not because of who you are, but because of who I am when I am with you Roy Croft
It is inaccurate to say that I hate everything I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty, and common decency This makes me forever ineligible for public office H. L. Mencken
If I know what love is, it is because of you Hermann Hesse
When somebody says it’s not about the money, it’s about the money H. L. Mencken
The regret of my life is that I have not said I love you often enough Yoko Ono
If a politician found he had cannibals among his constituents, he would promise them missionaries for dinner H. L. Mencken
You know you’re in love when you can’t fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams Dr. Seuss
In this world of sin and sorrow there is always something to be thankful for; as for me, I rejoice that I am not a Republican H. L. Mencken
True love is putting someone else before yourself Frozen
A man may be a fool and not know it, but not if he is married H. L. Mencken
Love understands love; it needs no talk Frances Havergal
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 H. L. Mencken
You make me want to be a better man Melvin Udall
The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all; it is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed a standard citizenry, to put down dissent and originality H. L. Mencken
I saw that you were perfect, and so I loved you Then I saw that you were not perfect and I loved you even more Angelita Lim
A professional politician is a professionally dishonorable man. In order to get anywhere near high office he has to make so many compromises and submit to so many humiliations that he becomes indistinguishable from a streetwalker H. L. Mencken
Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own Robert A. Heinlein
The notion that a radical is one who hates his country is naïve and usually idiotic. He is, more likely, one who likes his country more than the rest of us, and is thus more disturbed than the rest of us when he sees it debauched He is not a bad citizen turning to crime; he is a good citizen driven to despair H. L. Mencken
Love is not love until love’s vulnerable Theodore Roethke
Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance H. L. Mencken
The art of love is largely the art of persistence Albert Ellis
Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under H. L. Mencken
We are shaped and fashioned by what we love Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The Jews could be put down very plausibly as the most unpleasant race ever heard of As commonly encountered they lack any of the qualities that mark the civilized man courage, dignity, incorruptibility, ease, confidence. They have vanity without pride, voluptuousness without taste, and learning without wisdom. Their fortitude, such as it is, is wasted upon puerile objects, and their charity is mainly a form of display H. L. Mencken
You know you’re in love when you can’t fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams Dr. Seuss
A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin H. L. Mencken
If the path be beautiful, let us not question where it leads Anatole France
There’s really no point in voting If it made any difference, it would probably be illegal H. L. Mencken
There’s nothing that I wouldn’t do to make you feel my love Adele
Puritanism The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, maybe happy
I have not slept for fear I would wake to find all this a dream Ever After
