H. L. Mencken: New York: A third-rate Babylon.

A large part of altruism, even when it is perfectly honest, is grounded upon the fact that it is uncomfortable to have unhappy people about one.

H. L. Mencken

charity unhappy people

There is, it appears, a conspiracy of scientists afoot. Their purpose is to break down religion, propagate immorality, and so reduce mankind to the level of brutes. They are the sworn and sinister agents of Beelzebub, who yearns to conquer the world, and has his eye especially upon Tennessee.]

H. L. Mencken

conquer-the-world eye science

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

H. L. Mencken

faith men dull

A politician is an animal which can sit on a fence and yet keep both ears to the ground.

H. L. Mencken

democracy freedom animal

I believe there is a limit beyond which free speech cannot go, but it's a limit that's very seldom mentioned. It's the point where free speech begins to collide with the right to privacy. I don't think there are any other conditions to free speech. I've got a right to say and believe anything I please, but I haven't got a right to press it on anybody else. .... Nobody's got a right to be a nuisance to his neighbors.

H. L. Mencken

freedom believe thinking

I believe that religion, generally speaking, has been a curse to mankind - that its modest and greatly overestimated services on the ethical side have been more than overcome by the damage it has done to clear and honest thinking.

H. L. Mencken

believe religion thinking

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

H. L. Mencken

marriage anniversary funny

We must be willing to pay a price for freedom.

H. L. Mencken

freedom payment pay

Religion is "so absurd that it comes close to imbecility."

H. L. Mencken

atheism atheist religion

How do they taste? They taste like more.

H. L. Mencken

cooking taste food

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

marriage anniversary husband

The most costly of all follies is to believe passionately in the palpably not true. It is the chief occupation of mankind.

H. L. Mencken

occupation believe religion

To die for an idea; it is unquestionably noble. But how much nobler it would be if men died for ideas that were true!

H. L. Mencken

wisdom men ideas

Women always excel men in that sort of wisdom which comes from experience. To be a woman is in itself a terrible experience.

H. L. Mencken

wisdom literature men

In war the heroes always outnumber the soldiers ten to one.

H. L. Mencken

soldier hero war

For it is an absurdity to call a country civilized in which a decent and industrious man, laboriously mastering a trade which is valuble and necessary to the common weal, has no assurance that it will sustain him while he stands ready to practice it, or keep him out of the poorhouse when illness or age makes him idle.

H. L. Mencken

practice men country

Good government is that which delivers the citizen from being done out of his life and property too arbitrarily and violently-one that relieves him sufficiently from the barbaric business of guarding them to enable him to engage in gentler, more dignified, and more agreeable undertakings.

H. L. Mencken

citizens liberty government

No matter how happily a woman may be married, it always pleases her to discover that there is a nice man who wishes that she were not.

H. L. Mencken

flirty marriage nice

What men value in this world is not rights but privileges.

H. L. Mencken

leadership rights men

Conscience is the inner voice that warns us that someone might be looking.

H. L. Mencken

freedom life funny