H. L. Mencken

No one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public.

No one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public.

There is only one honest impulse at the bottom of Puritanism, and that is the impulse to punish the man read more

There is only one honest impulse at the bottom of Puritanism, and that is the impulse to punish the man with a superior capacity for happiness.

Conscience is a mother-in-law whose visit never ends.

Conscience is a mother-in-law whose visit never ends.

Say what you will about the Ten Commandments, you must always come back
to the pleasant fact that there are read more

Say what you will about the Ten Commandments, you must always come back
to the pleasant fact that there are only ten of them.

We must think of human progress, not as of something going on in the race in general, but as something read more

We must think of human progress, not as of something going on in the race in general, but as something going on in a small minority, perpetually beleaguered in a few walled towns. Now and then the horde of barbarians outside breaks through, and we have an armed effort to halt the process. That is, we have a Reformation, a French Revolution, a war for democracy, a Great Awakening. The minority is decimated and driven to cover. But a few survive- and a few are enough to carry on.