Author: H.L. Mencken Page 2

Dachshund: An animal half a dog high by a dog and a half long.

(1880 – 1956) journalist, essayist, editor & satirist
Animals Definitions Dogs

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

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

Theology is the effort to explain the unknowable in terms of the not worth knowing.

(1880 – 1956) journalist, essayist, editor & satirist
Beliefs Religion Science/Weather

A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin.

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

A good politician is quite as unthinkable as an honest burglar.

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

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.

(1880 – 1956) journalist, essayist, editor & satirist
Beliefs People Religion Sex Women

A newspaper is a device for making the ignorant more ignorant and the crazy crazier.

(1880 – 1956) journalist, essayist, editor & satirist
Communication Intelligence Reading/Writing

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

The average American now pays out twice as much in taxes as he formerly got in wages.

(1880 – 1956) journalist, essayist, editor & satirist
Government Money Taxes

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

There are two impossibilities in life: “just one drink” and “an honest politician.”

(1880 – 1956) journalist, essayist, editor & satirist
Alcohol Food/Drink Government Life Politicians

It is hard to believe that a man is telling the truth when you know that you would lie if you were in his place.

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

Optimist: The sort of man who marries his sister’s best friend.

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

Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.

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

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

It is the dull man who is always sure, and the sure man who is always dull.

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

The difference between a moral man and a man of honor is that the latter regrets a discreditable act, even when it has worked and he has not been caught.

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

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

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

If I had my way, any man guilty of golf would be ineligible for any office of trust in the United States.

(1880 – 1956) journalist, essayist, editor & satirist
America Golf Government Sports

It is a sin to believe evil of others, but is is seldom a mistake.

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