H. L. Mencken's most cutting quotes (with sources)
The top 3 according to 37 votes from people: Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy. · The objection to Puritans is not that they try to make us think as they do, but that they try to make us do as they think. · Progress: The process whereby the human race has got rid of whiskers, the vermiform appendix and God.. (Updated Feb 24, 2021.)
Puritanism as "the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy", democracy getting what it deserves "good and hard" and the neat, plausible, wrong solution to every problem: the sharpest lines of the Baltimore critic H. L. Mencken, from The Smart Set, the Prejudices series and A Mencken Chrestomathy.
Top 18
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1
Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.
A Mencken Chrestomathy (1949).
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2
The objection to Puritans is not that they try to make us think as they do, but that they try to make us do as they think.
A Little Book in C Major (1916).
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3
Progress: The process whereby the human race has got rid of whiskers, the vermiform appendix and God.
A Book of Burlesques (1916).
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4
Bachelors know more about women than married men. If they didn't, they'd be married, too.
A Little Book in C Major (1916).
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5
Forgive some sinner and wink your eye at some homely girl.
"Epitaph", The Smart Set (December 1921).
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6
Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.
"A Few Pages of Notes", The Smart Set (January 1915).
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7
Conscience is the inner voice that warns us somebody may be looking.
A Mencken Chrestomathy (1949).
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8
An idealist is one who, on noticing that a rose smells better than a cabbage, concludes that it is also more nourishing.
"A Few Pages of Notes", The Smart Set (January 1915).
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9
No one in this world... has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people.
"Notes on Journalism", Chicago Tribune (19 September 1926).
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10
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.
Prejudices: Fourth Series (1924), ch. 11.
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11
Explanations exist; they have existed for all time; there is always a well-known solution to every human problem — neat, plausible, and wrong.
"The Divine Afflatus", New York Evening Mail (16 November 1917).
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12
It is the dull man who is always sure, and the sure man who is always dull.
Prejudices: Second Series (1920), ch. 1.
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13
Injustice is relatively easy to bear; what stings is justice.
Prejudices: Third Series (1922), ch. 3.
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14
Truth would quickly cease to be stranger than fiction, once we got used to it.
A Little Book in C Major (1916).
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15
Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable.
Prejudices: Third Series (1922), ch. 14.
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16
The most costly of all follies is to believe passionately in the palpably not true. It is the chief occupation of mankind.
A Mencken Chrestomathy (1949).
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17
Of all escape mechanisms, death is the most efficient.
A Book of Burlesques (1916).
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18
Say what you will against me when I am gone, but don't forget to add, in common justice, that I was never converted to anything.
Baltimore Evening Sun (12 June 1922).
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