113 Quotes By H. L. Mencken


Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence.
H. L. Mencken on intelligence

No one in this world has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby.
H. L. Mencken on intelligence

We are here and it is now. Further than that, all human knowledge is moonshine.
H. L. Mencken on knowledge

The basic fact about human existence is not that it is a tragedy, but that it is a bore. It is not so much a war as an endless standing in line.
H. L. Mencken on life

Love is like war: easy to begin but very hard to stop.
H. L. Mencken on love

Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence.
H. L. Mencken on love

Love is the delusion that one woman differs from another.
H. L. Mencken on love

Women have simple tastes. They get pleasure out of the conversation of children in arms and men in love.
H. L. Mencken on love

To be in love is merely to be in a state of perceptual anesthesia - to mistake an ordinary young woman for a goddess.
H. L. Mencken on love

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

Adultery is the application of democracy to love.
H. L. Mencken on love

Love is an emotion that is based on an opinion of women that is impossible for those who have had any experience with them.
H. L. Mencken on love

Whenever you hear a man speak of his love for his country, it is a sign that he expects to be paid for it.
H. L. Mencken on love

Bachelors know more about women than married men if they didn't they'd be married too.
H. L. Mencken on marriage

Strike an average between what a woman thinks of her husband a month before she marries him and what she thinks of him a year afterward, and you will have the truth about him.
H. L. Mencken on marriage

Men have a much better time of it than women. For one thing, they marry later for another thing, they die earlier.
H. L. Mencken on marriage

Marriage is a wonderful institution, but who would want to live in an institution?
H. L. Mencken on marriage

Whenever a husband and wife begin to discuss their marriage they are giving evidence at a coroner's inquest.
H. L. Mencken on marriage

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 on marriage

Honor is simply the morality of superior men.
H. L. Mencken on men