Henry Louis Mencken
United States
12 Sep 1880 // 29 Jan 1956
Journalist / Satirist /Social critic
12 Sep 1880 // 29 Jan 1956
Journalist / Satirist /Social critic
Quotes
<< Prev Next >>
A man always remembers his first love with special tenderness, but after that he begins to bunch them
A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin
A church is a place in which gentlemen who have never been to heaven brag about it to persons who will never get there
You can't do anything about the length of your life, but you can do something about its width and depth
Whenever you hear a man speak of his love for his country it is a sign that he expects to be paid for it
Whenever a husband and wife begin to discuss their marriage they are giving evidence at a coroner's inquest
What men value in this world is not rights but privileges
We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart
Truth would quickly cease to become stranger than fiction, once we got as used to it
To wage a war for a purely moral reason is as absurd as to ravish a woman for a purely moral reason
Search
On Anger: "For every minute you remain angry, you give up sixty seconds of peace of mind."
Essays
Essays
On Destiny: "Our destiny exercises its influence over us even when, as yet, we have not learned its nature: it is our future that lays down the law of our today."
Human, All Too Human
Human, All Too Human
On Friendship: "A crowd is not company; and faces are but a gallery of pictures; and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love."
Essays
Essays