Inspirational and Thought-Provoking Quotes by H.L. Mencken

The universe is a big place, and it doesn’t give a damn about you.

A man’s character is his fate.

Reality is a crutch for people who can’t handle drugs.

Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.

The most important thing in life is to know how to give love, and to let it come in.

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

A good politician is quite harmless, as a rule; his usefulness is lost if he breaks the law.

Every man of courage is a welcome guest.

The average man does not want to be free. He simply wants to be safe.

The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt.

Love is the delusion that one woman differs from another.

To be happy is to be able to become aware of oneself without fright.

There is no other life; life itself is the path.

The only way to enjoy anything in this life is to earn it first.

A writer is a man who knows more than he puts down on paper.

The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.

The world is full of people who are dying to change it.

The chief function of the will is to keep us from going mad.

One can never be too sure of the facts.

A man’s only as good as his word, but only if his word is profitable.

Skepticism is the first step on the road to philosophy.

The most fatal illusion is the illusion of integrity.

We are all worms, but I do believe that I am a glow-worm.

If a man is not a liberal at twenty, he has no heart; if he is not a conservative at forty, he has no brain.

Bourgeois morality is the morality of success.

The truth is always the same, but it may be dressed differently.

One horse-laugh is worth ten thousand syllogisms.

A good politician is quite harmless, as a rule.

It is the natural tendency of man, to send the child to gain wisdom from the world.

The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it.

Men are not punished for their sins, but by them.

All social progress is based on the assumption that the masses are not fools.

In this world of sin and sorrow there is but one way to be happy.

Every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods.

The great man is he who does not lose his child’s heart.

Good taste is the first refuge of the non-creative.

The trouble with politicians is that they never take their jobs seriously.

What we need is a little more politeness and a lot less propriety.

The truth is that all great writers are, in a way, liars.

He is a man of many talents, but few accomplishments.

A belief is not merely an idea the mind possesses; it is an idea that possesses the mind.

There is no such thing as an honest politician, only varying degrees of deception.

An idea is only as good as its execution.

He who is afraid of the wind will never plant a seed.

The man who fights for his ideals is a hero.

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