H. L. Mencken

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

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

It is the invariable habit of bureaucracies, at all times and everywhere, to assume...that every citizen is a criminal. Their read more

It is the invariable habit of bureaucracies, at all times and everywhere, to assume...that every citizen is a criminal. Their one apparent purpose, pursued with a relentless and furious diligence, is to convert the assumption into a fact. They hunt endlessly for proofs, and, when proofs are lacking, for mere suspicions. The moment they become aware of a definite citizen, John Doe, seeking what is his right under the law, they begin searching feverishly for an excuse for withholding it from him.

To wage a war for a purely moral reason is as absurd as to ravish a woman for a purely read more

To wage a war for a purely moral reason is as absurd as to ravish a woman for a purely moral reason.

The idea that the sole aim of punishment is to prevent crime is obviously grounded upon the theory that crime read more

The idea that the sole aim of punishment is to prevent crime is obviously grounded upon the theory that crime can be prevented, which is almost as dubious as the notion that poverty can be prevented.

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.