WIST

Every step in human progress, from the first feeble stirrings in the abyss of time, has been opposed by the great majority of men. Every valuable thing that has been added to the store of man’s possessions has been derided by them when it was new, and destroyed by them when they had the power. They have fought every new truth ever heard of, and they have killed every truth-seeker who got into their hands.

H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) American writer and journalist [Henry Lewis Mencken]
“Homo Neanderthalensis,” Baltimore Evening Sun (29 Jun 1925)
Full text.

The ideal government … is one which lets the individual alone — one which barely escapes being no government at all.

H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) American writer and journalist [Henry Lewis Mencken]
“Matters of State: Le Contrat Social,” Prejudices: Third Series (1922)

The trouble with Communism is the Communists, just as the trouble with Christianity is the Christians.

H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) American writer and journalist [Henry Lewis Mencken]
“Mr. Mencken Sounds Off,” interview, LIFE Magazine (5 Aug 1946)

The Bill of Rights was designed  trustfully to prohibit forever two of the favorite crimes of all known governments: the seizure of private property without adequate compensation and the invasion of the citizen’s liberty without justifiable cause and due process.

H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) American writer and journalist [Henry Lewis Mencken]
“On Government” (2), Prejudices: Fourth Series (1924)

The man who is thought to be poor never gets a fair chance. No one wants to listen to him. No one gives a damn what he thinks or knows or feels. No one has any desire for his good opinion. I discovered this principle early in life, and have put it to use ever since.
I have got a great deal more out of men (and women) by having the name of being a well-heeled fellow than I have ever got by being decent to them, or by dazzling them with my sagacity, or by hard industry, or by a personal beauty that is singular and ineffable.

H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) American writer and journalist [Henry Lewis Mencken]
“Smart Set” (May 1920)

Thus I advise against suicide. Life may not be exactly pleasant, but it is at least not dull. Heave yourself into Hell today, and you may miss, tomorrow or next day, another Scopes trial, or another War to End War, or perhaps a rich and buxom widow with all her first husband’s clothes.

H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) American writer and journalist [Henry Lewis Mencken]
“Swing Low, Sweet Chariot!” The American Mercury (Apr 1928)
Review of R. Cavan, Suicide. Full text.

For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.

H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) American writer and journalist [Henry Lewis Mencken]
“The Divine Afflatus,” New York Evening Mail (16 Nov 1917)
Reprinted in Prejudices: Second Series (1920) and A Mencken Chrestomathy, ch. 25 (1949)

The row was over Darwinism, but before it ended Darwinism was almost forgotten. What Huxley fought for was something far greater: the right of civilized men to think freely and speak freely, without asking leave of authority, clerical or lay. How new that right is! And yet how firmly held! Today it would be hard to imagine living without it. No man of self-respect, when he has a thought to utter, pauses to wonder what the bishops will have to say about it. The views of bishops are simply ignored. Yet only sixty years ago they were still so powerful that they gave Huxley the battle of his life.

H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) American writer and journalist [Henry Lewis Mencken]
“Thomas Henry Huxley,” Baltimore Evening Sun (4 May 1925)

The men the American people admire most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest most violently are those who try to tell them the truth. A Galileo could no more be elected President of the United States than he could be elected Pope of Rome. Both high posts are reserved for men favored by God with an extraordinary genius for swathing the bitter facts of life in bandages of soft illusion.

H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) American writer and journalist [Henry Lewis Mencken]
(1918)

A home is not a mere transient shelter: its essence lies in the personalities of the people who live in it.

H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) American writer and journalist [Henry Lewis Mencken]
(Attributed)

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

H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) American writer and journalist [Henry Lewis Mencken]
(Attributed)

The American people know what they want, and deserve to get it, good and hard.

H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) American writer and journalist [Henry Lewis Mencken]
(Attributed)

Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule

H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) American writer and journalist [Henry Lewis Mencken]
(Attributed)

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

H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) American writer and journalist [Henry Lewis Mencken]
(Attributed)

We must respect the other fellow’s religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children are smart.

H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) American writer and journalist [Henry Lewis Mencken]
(Attributed)

HISTORIAN: an unsuccessful novelist.

H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) American writer and journalist [Henry Lewis Mencken]
(Attributed)

CLERGYMAN: A ticket speculator outside the gates of Heaven.

H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) American writer and journalist [Henry Lewis Mencken]
(Attributed)

SELF-RESPECT: The secure feeling that no one, as yet, is suspicious.

H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) American writer and journalist [Henry Lewis Mencken]
(Attributed)

Millions long for immortality who do not know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon.

H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) American writer and journalist [Henry Lewis Mencken]
(Attributed)
(also attrib Susan Ertz)

The world always makes the assumption that the exposure of an error is identical with the discovery of truth

H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) American writer and journalist [Henry Lewis Mencken]
(Attributed)

There comes a time in every normal man’s life when he must be tempted to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag and begin slitting throats.

H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) American writer and journalist [Henry Lewis Mencken]
(Attributed)

Most people want security in this world, not liberty.

H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) American writer and journalist [Henry Lewis Mencken]
(Attributed)

Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable.

H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) American writer and journalist [Henry Lewis Mencken]
(Attributed)

The chief value of money lies in the fact that one lives in a world in which it is overestimated.

H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) American writer and journalist [Henry Lewis Mencken]
(Attributed)

The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one’s time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.

H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) American writer and journalist [Henry Lewis Mencken]
(Attributed)

If I have been wrong in my agnosticism, when I die I’ll walk up to God in a manly way and say, “Sir, I made an honest mistake.”

H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) American writer and journalist [Henry Lewis Mencken]
(Attributed)
Quoted by John Kenneth Galbraith, interview with N. Attallah, Singular Encounters (1990)

Never argue with a man whose job depends on not being convinced.

H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) American writer and journalist [Henry Lewis Mencken]
(Attributed)

Quoted by C. Matthews, Hardball: How Politics Is Played, ch. 6 (1988)

Man is never honestly the fatalist, nor even the stoic. He fights his fate, often desperately. He is forever entering bold exceptions to the rulings of the bench of gods. This fighting, no doubt, makes for human progress, for it favors the strong and the brave. It also makes for beauty, for lesser men try to escape from a hopeless and intolerable world by creating a more lovely one of their own.

H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) American writer and journalist [Henry Lewis Mencken]
(Attributed)

Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.

H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) American writer and journalist [Henry Lewis Mencken]
A Little Book in C Major (1916)

It is hard to believe that a man is telling you the truth when you know you would lie if you were in his place.

H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) American writer and journalist [Henry Lewis Mencken]
A Little Book in C Major (1916)