This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken
Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard.
World |
H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken
Jury: A group of twelve man who, having lied to the judge about their hearing, health, and business engagements, have failed to fool him.
Worth |
H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken
Jealousy is the theory that some other fellow has just as little taste.
Worth |
H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken
No married man is genuinely happy if he has to drink worse whisky than he used to drink when he was single.
In order to go on living one must try to escape the death involved in perfectionism.
Evil |
Love, in distinction from friendship, is killed, or rather extinguished, the moment it is displayed in public.
H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken
Lawyer: one who protects us against robbery by taking away the temptation.
Men |
Hal Borland, formally Harold Glen Borland
No Winter lasts forever, no Spring skips its turn. April is a promise that May is bound to keep, and we know it.
Evil |
H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken
No government, of its own motion, will increase its own weakness, for that would mean to acquiesce in its own destruction... governments, whatever their pretensions otherwise, try to preserve themselves by holding the individual down ... Government itself, indeed, may be reasonably defined as a conspiracy against him. It?s one permanent aim, whatever its form, is to hobble him sufficiently to maintain itself.
Evil | Man | Pleasure | Understanding |
Sight is not faith, and hearing is not faith, neither is feeling faith; but believing when we neither see, hear nor feel is faith; and everywhere the Bible tells us our salvation is to be by faith. Therefore we must believe before we feel, and often against our feelings, if we would honor God by our faith.
Evil |
Power corrupts... when the weak band together in order to ruin the strong, but not before. The will to power... far from being a characteristic of the strong, is, like envy and greed, among the vices of the weak, and possibly even their most dangerous one.
The famous assertion by Einstein that the length of a rod depends on its velocity and on the chosen definition of simultaneity. ...is based on the fact that we do not measure the length of the rod, but its projection on a system at rest. How the length of the projection depends on the choice of simultaneity can be illustrated by reference to a photograph taken through a focal-plane shutter. Such a shutter... consists of a wide band with a horizontal slit, which slides down vertically. Different bands are photographed successively on the film. Moving objects are therefore strangely distorted; the wheels of a rapidly moving car for instance, appear to be slanted. The shape of the objects in the picture will evidently depend on the speed of the shutter. Similarly, the length of the moving segment depends on the definition of simultaneity. One definition of simultaneity differs from another because events that are simultaneous for one definition occur successively for another. What may be a simultaneity projection of a moving segment for one definition is a "focal-plane shutter photograph" for another.
Men |
To be a mother is the greatest vocation in the world. No being has a position of such great power and influence. She holds in her hands the destiny of nations, for to her is necessarily committed the making of the nation?s citizens.
Evil |
Much smoke, and little roast.
Life | Life | Television | World | Understand |