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Henry Louis Mencken

b. 1880; d. 1956

Aphorisms Attributed to This Aphorist

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#  ·  ---- Unrated  ·  submitted 1997

A home is not a mere transient shelter: its essence lies in the personalities of the people who live in it.

Henry Louis Mencken, in Happiness and Misery

#  ·  ---- Unrated  ·  submitted 1997

Any man who afflicts the human race with ideas must be prepared to see them misunderstood.

Henry Louis Mencken, in Wisdom and Ignorance

#  ·  ---- Unrated  ·  submitted 1997

Bachelors know more about women than married men do. If they didn't, they'd be married too.

Henry Louis Mencken, in Men and Women

#  ·  ---- Unrated  ·  submitted 1997

Conscience is the inner voice that warns us somebody is looking.

Henry Louis Mencken, in Altruism and Cynicism

#  ·  ---- Unrated  ·  submitted 1997

Criticism is prejudice made plausible.

Henry Louis Mencken, in Altruism and Cynicism

#  ·  ---- Unrated  ·  submitted 1997

Demagogue: One who preaches a doctrine he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots.

Henry Louis Mencken, in Altruism and Cynicism

#  ·  ---- Unrated  ·  submitted 1997

Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard.

Henry Louis Mencken, in Law and Politics

#  ·  ---- Unrated  ·  submitted 1997

Love: The delusion that one woman differs from another.

Henry Louis Mencken, in Love and Hate

#  ·  ---- Unrated  ·  submitted 1997

The cynics are right nine times out of ten.

Henry Louis Mencken, in Altruism and Cynicism

#  ·  ---- Unrated  ·  submitted 1997

There's always an easy solution to every human problem — neat, plausible, and wrong.

Henry Louis Mencken, in Altruism and Cynicism and Science and Religion

#  ·  ---- Unrated  ·  submitted 1997

Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach.

Henry Louis Mencken, in Success and Failure

#  ·  ---- Unrated  ·  submitted 1997

Unquestionably, there is progress. The average American now pays out twice as much in taxes as he formerly got in wages.

Henry Louis Mencken, in Law and Politics

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