Author: H.L. Mencken

The longest sentence you can form with two words is “I do.”

(1880 – 1956) journalist, essayist, editor & satirist
Marriage

Democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey cage.

(1880 – 1956) journalist, essayist, editor & satirist
Art Democracy Government Science/Weather

A man always remembers his first love with special tenderness, but after that he begins to bunch them.

(1880 – 1956) journalist, essayist, editor & satirist
Emotions Intelligence Love Memory

Love is like war: easy to begin but very hard to stop.

(1880 – 1956) journalist, essayist, editor & satirist
Conflict Emotions Love Time War

If I ever marry, it will be on a sudden impulse – as a man shoots himself.

(1880 – 1956) journalist, essayist, editor & satirist
Marriage Time

The best years are the forties; after fifty a man begins to deteriorate, but in the forties he is at the maximum of his villainy.

(1880 – 1956) journalist, essayist, editor & satirist
Age Characteristics Life

I hate all sports as rabidly as a person who likes sports hates common sense.

(1880 – 1956) journalist, essayist, editor & satirist
Emotions Sports

The penalty for laughing in a courtroom is six months in jail and if it were not for this penalty, the jury would never hear the evidence.

(1880 – 1956) journalist, essayist, editor & satirist
Emotions Government Laughter

If women believed in their husbands they would be a good deal happier and also a good deal more foolish.

(1880 – 1956) journalist, essayist, editor & satirist
Beliefs Husbands Marriage Wives

Self-respect: the secure feeling that no one, as yet, is suspicious.

(1880 – 1956) journalist, essayist, editor & satirist
Characteristics

A Sunday school is a prison in which children do penance for the evil conscience of their parents.

(1880 – 1956) journalist, essayist, editor & satirist
Beliefs Children Family Parents Religion

No man can hear his telephone ring without wishing heartily that Alexander Graham Bell had been run over by an ice wagon at the age of four.

(1880 – 1956) journalist, essayist, editor & satirist
Things

I never lecture, not because I am shy or a bad speaker, but simply because I detest the sort of people who go to lectures and don't want to meet them.

(1880 – 1956) journalist, essayist, editor & satirist
Communication People Speech

In the duel of sex, woman fights from a dreadnought and man from an open raft.

(1880 – 1956) journalist, essayist, editor & satirist
Men People Women

A celebrity is one who is known to many persons he is glad he doesn't know.

(1880 – 1956) journalist, essayist, editor & satirist
People Success

Jury: a group of twelve men who, having lied to the judge about their hearing, health and business engagements, have failed to fool him.

(1880 – 1956) journalist, essayist, editor & satirist
Law

Under democracy, one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule – and both commonly succeed, and are right.

(1880 – 1956) journalist, essayist, editor & satirist
Democracy Government Politics Success

Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.

(1880 – 1956) journalist, essayist, editor & satirist
Characteristics

It is hard for the ape to believe that he has descended from man.

(1880 – 1956) journalist, essayist, editor & satirist
Animals People Science/Weather

Legend: A lie that has attained the dignity of age.

(1880 – 1956) journalist, essayist, editor & satirist
Age Characteristics

A man always blames the woman who fooled him, in the same way he blames the door he walks into in the dark.

(1880 – 1956) journalist, essayist, editor & satirist
Men People Women