Quotes by H. L. Mencken

"Legend: A lie that has attained the dignity of age."

"Democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey cage."

"Puritanism. The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy."

"The one permanent emotion of the inferior man is fear - fear of the unknown, the complex, the inexplicable. What he wants above everything else is safety."

"We must be willing to pay a price for freedom."

"One of the most mawkish of human delusions is the notion that friendship should be eternal, or, at all events, life-long, and that any act which puts a term to it is somehow discreditable."

"Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public."

"Marriage is a wonderful institution, but who would want to live in an institution?"

"Say what you will about the ten commandments, you must always come back to the pleasant fact that there are only ten of them."

"It is even harder for the average ape to believe that he has descended from man."

"God is a comedian, playing to an audience too afraid to laugh."

"The worst government is often the most moral. One composed of cynics is often very tolerant and humane. But when fanatics are on top there is no limit to oppression."

"Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under."

"I believe that all government is evil, and that trying to improve it is largely a waste of time."

"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."

"There are men so philosophical that they can see humor in their own toothaches. But there has never lived a man so philosophical that he could see the toothache in his own humor."

"Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence."

"The basic fact about human existence is not that it is a tragedy, but that it is a bore. It is not so much a war as an endless standing in line."

"For it is mutual trust, even more than mutual interest that holds human associations together. Our friends seldom profit us but they make us feel safe. Marriage is a scheme to accomplish exactly that same end."

"Bachelors know more about women than married men; if they didn't they'd be married too."

"Men have a much better time of it than women. For one thing, they marry later; for another thing, they die earlier."

"Honor is simply the morality of superior men."

"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."

"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."

"Every man sees in his relatives, and especially in his cousins, a series of grotesque caricatures of himself."

"We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart."

"I believe that it is better to tell the truth than a lie. I believe it is better to be free than to be a slave. And I believe it is better to know than to be ignorant."

"Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance."

"The only really happy folk are married women and single men."

"Women always excel men in that sort of wisdom which comes from experience. To be a woman is in itself a terrible experience."

"Women have simple tastes. They get pleasure out of the conversation of children in arms and men in love."