H. L. Mencken Quotes on Man (50 Quotes)


    The theory seems to be that as long as a man is a failure he is one of God's children, but that as soon as he succeeds he is taken over by the Devil.

    The average man does not get pleasure out of an idea because he thinks it is true he thinks it is true because he gets pleasure out of it.

    No man is genuinely happy, married, who has to drink worse gin than he used to drink when he was single.

    Man weeps to think that he will die so soon; woman, that she was born so long ago.

    Men have a much better time of it than women. For one thing, they marry later; for another thing, they die earlier.


    It is not materialism that is the chief curse of the world, as pastors teach, but idealism. Men get into trouble by taking their visions and hallucinations too seriously.

    The difference between a moral man and a man of honor is that the latter regrets a discreditable act, even when it has worked and he has not been caught.

    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.

    There are people who read too much bibliobibuli. I know some who are constantly drunk on books, as other men are drunk on whiskey or religion. They wander through this most diverting and stimulating of worlds in a haze. . .

    Man is always looking for someone to boast to; woman is always looking for a shoulder to put her head on.

    If I ever marry it will be on a sudden impulse, as a man shoots himself.


    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.

    Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under.

    Every man is thoroughly happy twice in his life just after he met his first love, and just after he has left his last one.

    The first kiss is stolen by the man the last is begged by the woman.

    A nun, at best, is only half a woman, just as a priest is only half a man.

    It is hard for the ape to believe he descended from man.

    I never agree with Communists or any other kind of kept men.

    There are men so philosophical that they can see humor in their own toothaches. But there has never lived a man so philosophical that he could see the toothache in his own humor.

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

    All government, in its essence, is a conspiracy against the superior man.

    No matter how happily a woman may be married, it always pleases her to discover that there is a nice man who wishes that she were not.

    Bachelors know more about women than married men; if they didn't they'd be married too.

    The chief knowledge that a man gets from reading books is the knowledge that very few of them are worth reading.

    No married man is genuinely happy if he has to drink worse whisky than he used to drink when he was single.

    A prohibitionist is the sort of man one couldn't care to drink with, even if he drank.


    Man is a beautiful machine that works very badly.

    To sum up 1. The cosmos is a gigantic fly-wheel making 10, 000 revolutions a minute. 2. Man is a sick fly taking a dizzy ride on it. 3. Religion is the theory that the wheel was designed and set spinning to give him the ride.

    An idealist is a man who looks at a rose, and thinks, because it smells sweet, it will make better soup than cabbage.

    The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out... without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, intolerable.

    No man ever quite believes in any other man. One may believe in an idea absolutely, but not in a man.

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

    The only really happy folk are married women and single men.

    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.

    Whenever you hear a man speak of his love for his country, it is a sign that he expects to be paid for it.

    Government is actually the worst failure of civilized man. There has never been a really good one, and even those that are most tolerable are arbitrary, cruel, grasping and unintelligent.

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


    A bad man is the sort who weeps every time he speaks of a good woman.


    Moral certainty is always a sign of cultural inferiority. The more uncivilized the man, the surer he is that he knows precisely what is right and what is wrong.

    All men are frauds. The only difference between them is that some admit it. I myself deny it.

    The truly civilized man is always skeptical and tolerant . . . His culture is based on I am not too sure.

    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.

    A man may be a fool and not know it, but not if he is married.

    The curse of man, and the cause of nearly all his woe, is his stupendous capacity for believing the incredible.

    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 the truth.

    The typical lawmaker of today is a man wholly devoid of principle -- a mere counter in a grotesque and knavish game. If the right pressure could be applied to him, he would be cheerfully in favor of polygamy, astrology or cannibalism.


    More H. L. Mencken Quotations (Based on Topics)


    Man - Woman - Love - Morality - Government - Time - World - Life - Politics - Democracy - Truth - Sense & Perception - God - Idea - Wisdom & Knowledge - Happiness - People - Religions & Spirituality - Liberty & Freedom - View All H. L. Mencken Quotations

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