Top 150 Quotes by H. L. Mencken

Husbands never become good; they merely become proficient.

Have you ever watched a crab on the shore crawling backward in search of the Atlantic Ocean, and missing? That's the way the mind of man operates.

Adultery is the application of democracy to love.

Platitude: an idea (a) that is admitted to be true by everyone, and (b) that is not true.

Temptation is a woman's weapon and man's excuse.

It is inaccurate to say that I hate everything. I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty, and common decency. This makes me forever ineligible for public office.

An idealist is one who, on noticing that roses smell better than a cabbage, concludes that it will also make better soup.

Nevertheless, it is even harder for the average ape to believe that he has descended from man.

All government, of course, is against liberty.

Theology is the effort to explain the unknowable in terms of the not worth knowing.