Henry Louis Mencken

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Biography of Henry Louis Mencken
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Quote	Categories	Rating	Rate
"Giving every man a vote has no more made men wise and free than Christianity has made them good."	Evil, Freedom, Generosity
"One may no more live in the world without picking up the moral prejudices of the world than one will be able to go to hell without perspiring."	Ability, Life, Monarchy
"The penalty for laughing in a courtroom is six months in jail; if it were not for this penalty, the jury would never hear the evidence."	Humor, Laughter, Time
"The most dangerous man, to any government, is the man who Is able to think things out for himself, without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost invariably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane and intolerable, and so, if he is romantic, he tries to change it. And if he is not romantic personally, he is apt to spread discontent among those who are."	Ability, Anger, Change
"The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule."	Lies, Men
"Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats."	Change, Men, Time
"Criticism is prejudice made plausible."	Criticism
"Life is a dead-end street."	Death, Life
"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed -- and hence clamorous to be led to safety -- by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."	Imagination, Men, Politics
"A man always blames the woman who fooled him. In the same way he blames the door he walks into in the dark."	Darkness, Light, Men
"A politician is an animal which can sit on a fence and yet keep both ears to the ground."	Politics
"Bachelors know more about women than married men; if they didn't they'd be married too."	Knowledge, Men, Wisdom
"To be in love is merely to be in a state of perceptual anesthesia--to mistake an ordinary young man for a Greek god or an ordinary young woman for a goddess."	Age, Love, Men
"For every problem, there is one solution which is simple, neat and wrong."	Miscellaneous
"Love is the triump of imagination over intelligence."	Imagination, Intelligence, Love
"There is always an easy solution to every human problem -- neat, plausible, and wrong."	Men
"Life without sex might be safer but it would be unbearably dull. It is the sex instinct which makes women seem beautiful, which they are once in a blue moon, and men seem wise and brave, which they never are at all. Throttle it, denaturalize it, take it away, and human existence would be reduced to the prosiac, laborious, boresome, imbecile level of life in an anthill."	Beauty, Courage, Knowledge
"The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all; it is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed a standard citizenry, to put down dissent and originality."	Creativity, Darkness, Education
"The typical American of today has lost all the love of liberty, that his forefathers had, and all their disgust of emotion, and pride in self- reliance. He is led no longer by Davy Crocketts; he is led by cheer leaders, press agents, word mongers, uplifters."	Age, America, Freedom
"We are here and it is now. Further than that, all human knowledge is moonshine."	Knowledge, Men, Wisdom
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Browse Henry Louis Mencken quotes by category:

Ability	Acceptance	Age
America	Anger	Beauty
Change	Courage	Creativity
Criticism	Darkness	Death
Doubt	Education	Evil
Excellence	Faith	Freedom
Generosity	Government	Happiness
Honesty	Humor	Imagination
Intelligence	Joy	Knowledge
Laughter	Law	Leadership
Liberty	Lies	Life
Light	Love	Loyalty
Men	Military	Miscellaneous
Mistakes	Monarchy	Politics
Pride	Quitting	Reading
Religion	Sanity	School
Sorrow	Strength	Taxes
Teaching	Time	Truth
War	Wisdom	Women