Henry Louis Mencken
United States
12 Sep 1880 // 29 Jan 1956
Journalist / Satirist /Social critic
12 Sep 1880 // 29 Jan 1956
Journalist / Satirist /Social critic
Quotes
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Women have simple tastes. They get pleasure out of the conversation of children in arms and men in love
Women always excel men in that sort of wisdom which comes from experience. To be a woman is in itself a terrible experience
We must be willing to pay a price for freedom
We are here and it is now. Further than that, all human knowledge is moonshine
To die for an idea; it is unquestionably noble. But how much nobler it would be if men died for ideas that were true!
To be in love is merely to be in a state of perceptual anesthesia - to mistake an ordinary young woman for a goddess
There are men so philosophical that they can see humor in their own toothaches. But there has never lived a man so philosophical that he could see the toothache in his own humor
The one permanent emotion of the inferior man is fear - fear of the unknown, the complex, the inexplicable. What he wants above everything else is safety
The older I grow the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom
The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out... without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, intolerable
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On Anger: "For every minute you remain angry, you give up sixty seconds of peace of mind."
Essays
Essays
On Destiny: "Our destiny exercises its influence over us even when, as yet, we have not learned its nature: it is our future that lays down the law of our today."
Human, All Too Human
Human, All Too Human
On Friendship: "A crowd is not company; and faces are but a gallery of pictures; and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love."
Essays
Essays