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
No government, of its own motion, will increase its own weakness, for that would mean to acquiesce in its own destruction... governments, whatever their pretensions otherwise, try to preserve themselves by holding the individual down ... Government itself, indeed, may be reasonably defined as a conspiracy against him. It?s one permanent aim, whatever its form, is to hobble him sufficiently to maintain itself.
Evil | Man | Pleasure | Understanding |
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 |
Skill or fortune will efface the spots.
Evidence | Feelings | Little | People | Understand |
That which the wise man does first, the fool does last.
People | Present | Relationship |