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
Before a man speaks it is always safe to assume that he is a fool. After he speaks, it is seldom necessary to assume it.
The truth is that fullness of soul can sometimes overflow in utter vapidity of language, for none of us can ever express the exact measure of his needs or his thoughts or his sorrows; and human speech is like a cracked kettle on which we tap crude rhythms for bears to dance to, while we long to make music that will melt the stars.
Body |
H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken
In war the heroes always outnumber the soldiers ten to one.
Television | Wrong |
H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken
A Sunday school is a prison in which children do penance for the evil conscience of their parents.
H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken
Immorality: the morality of those who are having a better time.
There is no truth except in its relation, that is to say, the fashion in which we perceive the objects.
Why was life so unsatisfactory? Why did everything she leaned on crumble instantly to dust?
H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken
In any combat between a rogue and a fool the sympathy of mankind is always with the rogue.
Life | Life | Television |
H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken
The objection to Puritans is not that they try to make us think as they do, but that they try to make us do as they think.
Truth |
If a strong government finds that it can, with impunity, destroy a weak people, then the hour has struck for that weak people to appeal to the League of Nations to give its judgment in all freedom. God and history will remember your judgment.
H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken
Philosophy, as the modern world knows it, is only intellectual club-swinging.
Good |
Loving life is easy when you are abroad. Where no one knows you and you hold your life in your hands all alone, you are more master of yourself than at any other time
H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken
The notion that a radical is one who hates his country is na‹ve and usually idiotic. He is, more likely, one who likes his country more than the rest of us, and is thus more disturbed than the rest of us when he sees it debauched. He is not a bad citizen turning to crime; he is a good citizen driven to despair.
Only crime and the criminal, it is true, confront us with the perplexity of radical evil; but only the hypocrite is really rotten to the core.
Praise |
You have to fit in sometimes to make people comfortable to listen to you.