A church is a place in which gentlemen who have never been to heaven brag about it to persons who will never get there. – H. L. 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. – H. L. Mencken
The worst government is often the most moral. One composed of cynics is often very tolerant and humane. But when fanatics are on top there is no limit to oppression. – H. L. Mencken
It doesn’t take a majority to make a rebellion; it takes only a few determined leaders and a sound cause. – H. L. Mencken
It is not materialism that is the chief curse of the world, as pastors teach, but idealism. Men get into trouble by taking their visions and hallucinations too seriously. – H. L. Mencken
Man is always looking for someone to boast to; woman is always looking for a shoulder to put her head on. – H. L. Mencken
The capacity of human beings to bore one another seems to be vastly greater than that of any other animal. – H. L. Mencken
For centuries, theologians have been explaining the unknowable in terms of the-not-worth-knowing. – H. L. Mencken
The theory seems to be that as long as a man is a failure he is one of God’s children, but that as soon as he succeeds he is taken over by the Devil. – H. L. Mencken
The chief contribution of Protestantism to human thought is its massive proof that God is a bore. – H. L. Mencken
No man ever quite believes in any other man. One may believe in an idea absolutely, but not in a man. – H. L. Mencken
Democracy is only a dream: it should be put in the same category as Arcadia, Santa Claus, and Heaven. – H. L. Mencken
No one in this world, so far as I know – and I have searched 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. – H. L. Mencken
On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron. – H. L. Mencken
No matter how long he lives, no man ever becomes as wise as the average woman of forty-eight. – H. L. Mencken
No married man is genuinely happy if he has to drink worse whisky than he used to drink when he was single. – H. L. Mencken
When a new source of taxation is found it never means, in practice, that the old source is abandoned. It merely means that the politicians have two ways of milking the taxpayer where they had one before. – H. L. Mencken
It is now quite lawful for a Catholic woman to avoid pregnancy by a resort to mathematics, though she is still forbidden to resort to physics or chemistry. – H. L. Mencken
Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard. – H. L. Mencken
