Author: H.L. Mencken Page 3

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

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

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

A man may be a fool and not know it, but not if he is married.

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

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

Bachelors have consciences, married men have wives.

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

His writing is rumble and bumble, flap and doodle, balder and dash.

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

Husbands never become good; they merely become proficient.

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

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

He slept more than any other president… Nero fiddled, but Coolidge only snored.

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

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

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

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

Say what you will about the Ten Commandments, you must always come back to the pleasant fact that there are only ten of them.

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

Immorality: the morality of those who are having a better time.

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

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

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

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

Wealth is any income that is at least one hundred dollars a year more than the income of one’s wife’s sister’s husband.

(1880 – 1956) journalist, essayist, editor & satirist
Money Wealth Wives

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

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

Historian: an unsuccessful novelist.

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

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

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