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
College football would be much more interesting if the faculty played instead of the students, and even more interesting if the trustees played. There would be a great increase in broken arms, legs, and necks, and simultaneously an appreciable diminution in the loss of humanity.
There is no truth except in its relation, that is to say, the fashion in which we perceive the objects.
Why was life so unsatisfactory? Why did everything she leaned on crumble instantly to dust?
You ask me whether the Orient is up to what I imagined it to be. Yes, it is; and more than that, it extends far beyond the narrow idea I had of it. I have found, clearly delineated, everything that was hazy in my mind. Facts have taken the place of suppositions - so excellently so that it is often as though I were suddenly coming upon old forgotten dreams.
H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken
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.
Will |
Love is when the other person's happiness is more important than your own.
H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken
If women believed in their husbands they would be a good deal happier and also a good deal more foolish.
The disparaging of those we love always alienates us from them to some extent. We must not touch our idols; the gilt comes off in our hands.
I've learned that it doesn't matter how your husband squeezes the toothpaste, the important thing is how he squeezes you.
Will |
H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken
As I stoop to lace my shoe you clout me over the coccyx with a length of hickory (Carya lacinosa). I conclude instantly that you are a jackass. This is a whole process of human thought in little. This also is free will.
H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken
In the duel of sex, woman fights from a dreadnought and man from an open raft.
Hate |
H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken
No one in this world, so far as I know - and I have researched the records for years, and employed agents to help me - has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby.
Friend |
H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken
The only obligation I recognize in this world is my duty to my immediate family
Will |
H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken
When I die I shall be content to vanish into nothingness... No show, however good, could conceivably be good forever... I do not believe in immortality, and have no desire for it.
There are good men and wicked. The former should be made use of and the latter punished, without attempting to understand why the ones are good and the others wicked.
H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken
Liar: (a) One who pretends to be very good; (b) One who pretends to be very bad.
If each and every one endeavors to cooperate and work in as much as his capacity permits, our faith rests upon the Almighty God that he would bless the results for us.
Will |
The United Nations continues to sense as the forum where nations whose interests clash may lay their cases before world opinion. It still provides the essential escape valve without which the slow build-up of pressures would have long since resulted in catastrophic explosion.
Day |