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
Government today is growing too strong to be safe. There are no longer any citizens in the world there are only subjects. They work day in and day out for their masters they are bound to die for their masters at call. Out of this working and dying they tend to get less and less.
Is the Church fulfilling a purely religious role when by its silence or friendly relationships it lends legitimacy to dictatorial and oppressive government?
Let the refining and improving of your own life keep you so busy that you have little time to criticize others.
H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken
In war the heroes always outnumber the soldiers ten to one.
Television | Wrong |
H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken
Immorality: the morality of those who are having a better time.
There is no truth except in its relation, that is to say, the fashion in which we perceive the objects.
We were Red Romantics, perfectly ridiculous to be sure, but in full bloom. The little good which remains to me comes from that epoch.
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.
Love is when the other person's happiness is more important than your own.
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.
Without ideality, there is no grandeur; without grandeur there is no beauty. Olympus is a mountain. The most swagger monument will always be the Pyramids. Exuberance is better than taste; the desert is better than a street-pavement, and a savage is better than a hairdresser!
H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken
Democracy is the pathetic belief in the wisdom of collective ignorance.
Work |
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 objection to Puritans is not that they try to make us think as they do, but that they try to make us do as they think.
Truth |
H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken
The only obligation I recognize in this world is my duty to my immediate family
Will |
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.