Quotes by H.L. Mencken

The harsh, useful things of the world, from pulling teeth to digging potatoes, are best done by men who are as starkly sober as so many convicts in the death-house, but the lovely and useless things, the charming and exhilarating things, are best done by men with, as the phrase is, a few sheets in the wind. 

A theologian is like a blind man in a dark room searching for a black cat which isn’t there - and finding it!

As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people....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.

There is always a well-known solution to every human problem--neat, plausible, and wrong.

Penetrating so many secrets, we cease to believe in the unknowable.
But there it sits nevertheless, calmly licking its chops.

For every human problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and
wrong.

I believe that liberty is the only genuinely valuable thing that men have invented, at least in the field of government, in a thousand years. I believe that it is better to be free than to be not free, even when the former is dangerous and the latter safe. I believe that the finest qualities of man can flourish only in free air – that progress made under the shadow of the policeman's club is false progress, and of no permanent value. I believe that any man who takes the liberty of another into his keeping is bound to become a tyrant, and that any man who yields up his liberty, in however slight the measure, is bound to become a slave.

The most dangerous man, to any government, is the man who Is able to think things out for himself, without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost invariably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane and intolerable, and so, if he is romantic, he tries to change it. And if he is not romantic personally, he is apt to spread discontent among those who are.

In this world of sin and sorrow there is always something to be thankful for. As for me, I rejoice that I am not a Republican.

In this world of sin and sorrow there is always something to be thankful for. As for me, I rejoice that I am not a Republican.