Henry Louis Mencken

(born 1880; died 1956)

A home is not a mere transient shelter: its essence lies in the personalities of the people who live in it. [Select]

{Category: Happiness and Misery}

Any man who afflicts the human race with ideas must be prepared to see them misunderstood. [Select]

{Category: Wisdom and Ignorance}

Bachelors know more about women than married men do. If they didn't, they'd be married too. [Select]

{Category: Men and Women}

Conscience is the inner voice that warns us somebody is looking. [Select]

{Category: Altruism and Cynicism}

Criticism is prejudice made plausible. [Select]

{Category: Altruism and Cynicism}

Demagogue: One who preaches a doctrine he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots. [Select]

{Category: Altruism and Cynicism}

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

{Category: Law and Politics}

Love: The delusion that one woman differs from another. [Select]

{Category: Love and Hate}

The cynics are right nine times out of ten. [Select]

{Category: Altruism and Cynicism}

There's always an easy solution to every human problem -- neat, plausible, and wrong. [Select]

{Categories: Altruism and Cynicism, Science and Religion}

Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach. [Select]

{Category: Success and Failure}

Unquestionably, there is progress. The average American now pays out twice as much in taxes as he formerly got in wages. [Select]

{Category: Law and Politics}

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