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
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
Laws are no longer made by a rational process of public discussion; they are made by a process of blackmail and intimidation, and they are executed in the same manner.
Man |
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
The central belief of every moron is that he is the victim of a mysterious conspiracy against his common rights and true deserts.
Man |
H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken
The seasick passenger on an ocean liner detests the good sailor who stalks past him 265 times a day grandly smoking a large, greasy cigar. In precisely the same way the democrat hates the man who is having a better time in the world. This is the origin of democracy. It is also the origin of Puritanism.
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 |
Hal Borland, formally Harold Glen Borland
He who travels west travels not only with the sun but with history.
Will |
If you ask a member of this generation two simple questions: "How do you want the world to be in fifty years?" and "What do you want your life to be like five years from now?" the answers are quite often preceded by "Provided there is still a world" and "Provided I am still alive." To the often-heard question, ?Who are they, this new generation?? one is tempted to answer, Those who hear the ticking. And to the other question, Who are they who utterly deny them? the answer may well be, Those who do not know, or refuse to face, things as they really are.
Will |
H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken
The real charm of the United States is that it is the only comic country ever heard of.
H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken
The scientific impulse seems to me to be the very opposite of the religious impulse. When a man seeks knowledge he is trying to gain means of fighting his own way in the world, but when he prays he confesses that he is unable to do so. .... The feeling of abasement, of incapacity, is inseparable from the religious impulse, but against that feeling all exact knowledge makes war. The efficient man does not cry out "Save me, O God". On the contrary, he makes diligent efforts to save himself. But suppose he fails? Doesn't he throw himself, in the end, on the mercy of the gods? Not at all. He accepts his fate with philosophy, buoyed up by the consciousness that he has done his best. Irreligion, in a word, teaches men how to die with dignity, just as it teaches them how to live with dignity.
H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken
The worst man hesitates when choosing a mother for his children. And hesitating, he is lost.
The Charter of the United Nations expresses the noblest aspirations of man: abjugation of force in the settlement of disputes between states; the assurance of human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language or religion; the safeguarding of international peace and security. But these, too, as were the phrases of the Covenant, are only words; their value depends wholly on our will to observe and honour them and give them content and meaning. The preservation of peace and the guaranteeing of man's basic freedoms and rights require courage and eternal vigilance: courage to speak and act ? and if necessary, to suffer and die ? for truth and justice; eternal vigilance, that the least transgression of international morality shall not go undetected and unremedied. These lessons must be learned anew by each succeeding generation, and that generation is fortunate indeed which learns from other than its own bitter experience. This Organization and each of its members bear a crushing and awesome responsibility: to absorb the wisdom of history and to apply it to the problems of the present, in order that future generations may be born, and live, and die, in peace.
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.