This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken
I do not pretend, of course, that I have never done it; mere politeness forces one to it; there are women who sulk and grow bellicose unless one at least makes the motions of kissing them. But what I mean is that I have never found the act a tenth part as agreeable as poets, the authors of musical comedy librettos, and (on the contrary side) chaperones and the gendarmerie make it out. The physical sensation, far from being pleasant, is intensely uncomfortable?the suspension of respiration, indeed, quickly resolves itself into a feeling of suffocation?and the posture necessitated by the approximation of lips and lips is unfailingly a constrained and ungraceful one. Theoretically, a man kisses a woman perpendicularly, with their eyes, those windows of the soul, synchronizing exactly. But actually, on account of the incompressibility of the nasal cartilages, he has to incline either his or her head to an angle of at least 60 degrees, and the result is that his right eye gazes insanely at the space between her eyebrows, while his left eye is fixed upon some vague spot behind her. An instantaneous photograph of such a maneuvre, taken at the moment of incidence, would probably turn the stomach of even the most romantic man, and force him, in sheer self-respect, to renounce kissing as he has renounced leap-frog and walking on stilts.
H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken
Any man who, having a child or children he can't support, proceeds to have another should be sterilized at once.
Church |
H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken
Politicians seldom if ever get [into public office] by merit alone, at least in democratic states. Sometimes, to be sure, it happens, but only by a kind of miracle. They are chosen normally for quite different reasons, the chief of which is simply their power to impress and enchant the intellectually underprivileged? Will any of them venture to tell the plain truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth about the situation of the country, foreign or domestic? Will any of them refrain from promises that he knows he can?t fulfill ? that no human being could fulfill? Will any of them utter a word, however obvious, that will alarm or alienate any of the huge pack of morons who cluster at the public trough, wallowing in the pap that grows thinner and thinner, hoping against hope?
H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken
Life without sex might be safer but it would be unbearably dull.
H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken
The public, with its mob yearning to be instructed, edified and pulled by the nose, demands certainties?. but there are no certainties.
H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken
In this world of sin and sorrow there is always something to be thankful for; as for me, I rejoice that I am not a Republican.
Monumentality is an affair of relativity. The truly monumental can only come about by means of the most exact and refined relation between parts. Since each thing carries both a meaning of its own and an associated meaning in relation to something else ? its essential value is relative. We speak of the mood we experience when looking at a landscape. This mood results from the relation of certain things rather than from their separate actualities. This is because objects do not in themselves possess the total effect they give when interrelated.
People |
Poor men do penance for rich men's sins.
Experience | Openness | People | Personality | Safe |
Public money is like holy water, every one helps himself to it.
Nothing improves the taste of pasta more than a good appetite.
Take the will for the deed.
Focus | Government | People | Price | Government |
Penny and penny laid up will be many.
Diversity | People | Understanding | Understand |