Quotes from H. L. Mencken

On one issue, at least, men and women agree: they both distrust women.

Truth would quickly cease to be stranger than fiction, once we got as used to it.

You can't do anything about the length of your life, but you can do something about its width and depth.

All human progress, even in morals, has been the work of men who have doubted the current moral values, not of men who have whooped them up and tried to enforce them.

Unionism, seldom if ever, uses such powers as it has to ensure better work; almost always it devotes a large part of that power to safeguard bad work.

It is impossible to think of a man of any actual force and originality, universally recognized as having those qualities, who spent his whole life appraising and describing the work of other men.

Every autobiography ... becomes an absorbing work of fiction, with something of the charm of a cryptogram.

The only liberty an inferior man really cherishes is the liberty to quit work, stretch out in the sun, and scratch himself.

Temptation is an irresistible force at work on a movable body.

No one hates his job so heartily as a farmer.

The opera is to music what a bawdy house is to a cathedral.

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.

Always remember this: If you don't attend the funerals of your friends, they will certainly not attend yours.

He who eats alone chokes alone.

Chopin--Two embalmers at work upon a minor poetthe scent of tuberosesAutumn rain.

Never let your inferiors do you a favor - it will be extremely costly.

Wherever I sit is the head of the table.

Every complex problem has a simple solution that doesn't work.

Never drink if you've got any work to do. Never.

Is it hot in the rolling mill? Are the hours long? Is $15 a day not enough? Then escape is easy. Simply throw up your job, spit on your hands, and write another "Rosenkavailer."

Nothing can come out of an artist that is not in the man.

The capacity of human beings to bore one another seems to be vastly greater than that of any other animal.

Unionism seldom if ever uses such powers as it has to ensure better work almost always it devotes a large part of that power to safeguarding bad work.

Judge: a law student who marks his own examination-papers.