Great Throughts Treasury

This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.

Related Quotes

H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken

The cynics are right nine times out of ten.

Will |

Hal Borland, formally Harold Glen Borland

To know after absence the familiar street and road and village and house is to know again the satisfaction of home.

Learning | Will |

H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken

Whenever you hear a man speak of his love for his country it is a sign that he expects to be paid for it.

Organization | Will | Trouble | Leader |

Hamilton Wright Mabie

Fair queen, at home there is none like thee, but over the mountains is Snow-white free, with seven little dwarfs, who are strange to see; a thousand times fairer than thou is she. Queen, thou art not the fairest now; Snow-white over the mountain's brow a thousand times fairer is than thou. Queen, thou art the fairest here, but not when Snow-white is near; over the mountains still is she, fairer a thousand times than thee.

Good | Will |

Haile Selassie

Here is our opportunity and our challenge. If the nuclear powers are prepared to declare a truce, let us seize the moment to strengthen the institutions and procedures which will serve as the means for the pacific settlement of disputes among men.

Pleasure | Will |

H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken

Morality and honor are not to be confused. The difference between a moral man and a man of honor is that the latter regrets a discreditable act, even when it has worked and he has not been caught.

Words |

H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken

The woman who is not pursued sets up the doctrine that pursuit is offensive to her sex, and wants to make it a felony. No genuinely attractive woman has any such desire. She likes masculine admiration, however violently expressed, and is quite able to take care of herself. More, she is well aware that very few men are bold enough to offer it without a plain invitation, and this awareness makes her extremely cynical of all women who complain of being harassed, beset, storied, and seduced. All the more intelligent women that I know, indeed, are unanimously of the opinion that no girl in her right senses has ever been actually seduced since the world began;

Words |

H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken

What the South really needs is fewer scrub bulls ? on the human level.

Will |

H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken

No government as such is ever in favor of the freedom of the individual. It invariably seeks to limit that freedom, if not by overt denial, then by seeking constantly to widen its own functions.

Heart |

H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken

Religion deserves no more respect than a pile of garbage.

Heart |

Hannah Arendt

For politics is not like the nursery; in politics obedience and Support are the same.

Words |

H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken

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.

Will |

Haile Selassie

All well-ordered and modern states can only base themselves upon Courts of Justice and Conduct of Laws which are just, correct and geared towards the protection of the rights of individuals. Justice is a product of education.

Good | Will |

H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken

What men value in this world is not rights but privileges.

Will |

Hannah Arendt

Few girls are as well shaped as a good horse.

Will |

H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken

Religion, like poetry, is simply a concerted effort to deny the most obvious realities.

Will |

Hamilton Wright Mabie

He strains his conversation through a cigar.

Will |

H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken

The extortions and oppressions of government will go on so long as such bare fraudulence deceives and disarms the victims - so long as they are ready to swallow the immemorial official theory that protesting against the stealings of the archbishop's secretary's nephew's mistress' illegitimate son is a sin against the Holy Ghost.

Will |

H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken

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

Will |

H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken

The average newspaper, especially of the better sort, has the intelligence of a hillbilly evangelist, the courage of a rat, the fairness of a prohibitionist boob-jumper, the information of a high school janitor, the taste of a designer of celluloid valentines, and the honor of a police-station lawyer.

Deeds | Man | Words | Deeds |