H.L. Mencken Quotes

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.

We are here and it is now. Further than that all knowledge is moonshine.

Hope: A pathological belief in the occurrence of the impossible.

Morality is the theory that every human act must be either right or wrong and that 99% of them are wrong.

A cynic is a man who when he smells flowers looks around for a coffin.

Penetrating so many secrets we cease to believe in the unknowable. But there it sits nevertheless calmly licking its chops.

Self-respect--the secure feeling that no one, as yet, is suspicious.

I have often misunderstood men grossly, and I have misrepresented them when I understood them, sacrificing sense to make a phrase. Here, of course, is where even the most conscientious critic often goes aground; he is apt to be an artist before he is a scientist, and the impulse to create something passionately is stronger in him than the impulse to state something accurately.