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H.L. Mencken

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One of the most irrational of all the conventions of modern society is the one to the effect that religious opinions should be respected. …[This] convention protects them, and so they proceed with their blather unwhipped and almost unmolested, to the great damage of common sense and common decency. that they should have this immunity is an outrage. There is nothing in religious ideas, as a class, to lift them above other ideas. On the contrary, they are always dubious and often quite silly. Nor is there any visible intellectual dignity in theologians. Few of them know anything that is worth knowing, and not many of them are even honest.
From H.L. Mencken on Religion
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Topic: Religion
The trouble with Communism is the Communists, just as the trouble with Christianity is the Christians.
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Topic: Religion
We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart.
From Minority Report
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Topic: Funny
The older I grow, the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom.
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Topic: Funny
A philosopher is a blind man in a dark room looking for a black cat that isn't there. A theologian is the man who finds it.
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Topic: Funny, Philosophical, Religion
Most pedagogues male, and the overwhelming majority of the female ones, are not even Ph.D.’s. They are simply dull persons who have found it easy to get along by dancing to whatever tune happens to be lined out. At this dancing they have trained themselves to swallow any imaginable fad or folly, and always with enthusiasm. The schools reek with this puerile nonsense. Their programs of study sound like the fantastic inventions of comedians gone insane. The teaching of the elements is abandoned for a dreadful mass of useless fol-de-rols, by quack psychology out of the uplift. No one ever hears of a pedagogue protesting against this bilge. The profession is almost completely lacking in professional conscience.
From A Second Mencken Chrestomathy
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Topic: Education
The essence of science is that it is always willing to abandon a given idea for a better one; the essence of theology is that it holds its truths to be eternal and immutable.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Religion
Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance. No one in this world, so far as I know—and I have researched the records for years, and employed agents to help me—has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby.
From Notes on Democracy
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Topic: Funny
In the present case it is a little inaccurate to say I hate everything. I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty and common decency. This makes me forever ineligible to any public office of trust or profit in the Republic. But I do not repine, for I am a subject of it only by force of arms.
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Topic: Funny
An idealist is one who, on noticing that a rose smells better than a cabbage, concludes that it makes a better soup.
From A Book of Burlesques
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Topic: Funny
It is the natural tendency of the ignorant to believe what is not true. In order to overcome that tendency it is not sufficient to exhibit the true; it is also necessary to expose and denounce the false. To admit that the false has any standing in court, that it ought to be handled gently because millions of morons cherish it and thousands of quacks make their livings propagating it—to admit this, as the more fatuous of the reconcilers of science and religion inevitably do, is to abandon a just cause to its enemies, cravenly and without excuse.
From American Mercury
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Topic: Religion
The most erroneous assumption is to the effect that the aim of public education is to fill the young of the species with knowledge and awaken their intelligence, and so make them fit to discharge the duties of citizenship in an enlightened and independent manner. Nothing could be further from the truth. The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all; it is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to put down dissent and originality. That is its aim in the United States, whatever the pretensions of politicians, pedagogues and other such mountebanks, and that is its aim everywhere else.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Education
Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable.
From Prejudices: Third Series
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Topic: Funny
Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.
From A Mencken Chrestomathy
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Topic: Happiness
Theology is the effort to explain the unknowable in terms of the not worth knowing.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Religion
One of the most irrational of all the conventions of modern society is the one to the effect that religious opinions should be respected. …[This] convention protects them, and so they proceed with their blather unwhipped and almost unmolested, to the great damage of common sense and common decency. that they should have this immunity is an outrage. There is nothing in religious ideas, as a class, to lift them above other ideas. On the contrary, they are always dubious and often quite silly. Nor is there any visible intellectual dignity in theologians. Few of them know anything that is worth knowing, and not many of them are even honest.
From H.L. Mencken on Religion
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Religion
The trouble with Communism is the Communists, just as the trouble with Christianity is the Christians.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Religion
We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart.
From Minority Report
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Funny
The older I grow, the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Funny
A philosopher is a blind man in a dark room looking for a black cat that isn't there. A theologian is the man who finds it.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Funny, Philosophical, Religion
Most pedagogues male, and the overwhelming majority of the female ones, are not even Ph.D.’s. They are simply dull persons who have found it easy to get along by dancing to whatever tune happens to be lined out. At this dancing they have trained themselves to swallow any imaginable fad or folly, and always with enthusiasm. The schools reek with this puerile nonsense. Their programs of study sound like the fantastic inventions of comedians gone insane. The teaching of the elements is abandoned for a dreadful mass of useless fol-de-rols, by quack psychology out of the uplift. No one ever hears of a pedagogue protesting against this bilge. The profession is almost completely lacking in professional conscience.
From A Second Mencken Chrestomathy
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Education
The essence of science is that it is always willing to abandon a given idea for a better one; the essence of theology is that it holds its truths to be eternal and immutable.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Religion
Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance. No one in this world, so far as I know—and I have researched the records for years, and employed agents to help me—has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby.
From Notes on Democracy
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Funny
In the present case it is a little inaccurate to say I hate everything. I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty and common decency. This makes me forever ineligible to any public office of trust or profit in the Republic. But I do not repine, for I am a subject of it only by force of arms.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Funny
An idealist is one who, on noticing that a rose smells better than a cabbage, concludes that it makes a better soup.
From A Book of Burlesques
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Funny
It is the natural tendency of the ignorant to believe what is not true. In order to overcome that tendency it is not sufficient to exhibit the true; it is also necessary to expose and denounce the false. To admit that the false has any standing in court, that it ought to be handled gently because millions of morons cherish it and thousands of quacks make their livings propagating it—to admit this, as the more fatuous of the reconcilers of science and religion inevitably do, is to abandon a just cause to its enemies, cravenly and without excuse.
From American Mercury
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Religion
The most erroneous assumption is to the effect that the aim of public education is to fill the young of the species with knowledge and awaken their intelligence, and so make them fit to discharge the duties of citizenship in an enlightened and independent manner. Nothing could be further from the truth. The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all; it is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to put down dissent and originality. That is its aim in the United States, whatever the pretensions of politicians, pedagogues and other such mountebanks, and that is its aim everywhere else.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Education
Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable.
From Prejudices: Third Series
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Funny
Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.
From A Mencken Chrestomathy
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Happiness
Theology is the effort to explain the unknowable in terms of the not worth knowing.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Religion
One of the most irrational of all the conventions of modern society is the one to the effect that religious opinions should be respected. …[This] convention protects them, and so they proceed with their blather unwhipped and almost unmolested, to the great damage of common sense and common decency. that they should have this immunity is an outrage. There is nothing in religious ideas, as a class, to lift them above other ideas. On the contrary, they are always dubious and often quite silly. Nor is there any visible intellectual dignity in theologians. Few of them know anything that is worth knowing, and not many of them are even honest.
From H.L. Mencken on Religion
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Religion
The trouble with Communism is the Communists, just as the trouble with Christianity is the Christians.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Religion
We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart.
From Minority Report
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Funny
The older I grow, the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Funny
A philosopher is a blind man in a dark room looking for a black cat that isn't there. A theologian is the man who finds it.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Funny, Philosophical, Religion
Most pedagogues male, and the overwhelming majority of the female ones, are not even Ph.D.’s. They are simply dull persons who have found it easy to get along by dancing to whatever tune happens to be lined out. At this dancing they have trained themselves to swallow any imaginable fad or folly, and always with enthusiasm. The schools reek with this puerile nonsense. Their programs of study sound like the fantastic inventions of comedians gone insane. The teaching of the elements is abandoned for a dreadful mass of useless fol-de-rols, by quack psychology out of the uplift. No one ever hears of a pedagogue protesting against this bilge. The profession is almost completely lacking in professional conscience.
From A Second Mencken Chrestomathy
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Education
The essence of science is that it is always willing to abandon a given idea for a better one; the essence of theology is that it holds its truths to be eternal and immutable.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Religion
Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance. No one in this world, so far as I know—and I have researched the records for years, and employed agents to help me—has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby.
From Notes on Democracy
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Funny
In the present case it is a little inaccurate to say I hate everything. I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty and common decency. This makes me forever ineligible to any public office of trust or profit in the Republic. But I do not repine, for I am a subject of it only by force of arms.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Funny
An idealist is one who, on noticing that a rose smells better than a cabbage, concludes that it makes a better soup.
From A Book of Burlesques
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Funny
It is the natural tendency of the ignorant to believe what is not true. In order to overcome that tendency it is not sufficient to exhibit the true; it is also necessary to expose and denounce the false. To admit that the false has any standing in court, that it ought to be handled gently because millions of morons cherish it and thousands of quacks make their livings propagating it—to admit this, as the more fatuous of the reconcilers of science and religion inevitably do, is to abandon a just cause to its enemies, cravenly and without excuse.
From American Mercury
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Religion
The most erroneous assumption is to the effect that the aim of public education is to fill the young of the species with knowledge and awaken their intelligence, and so make them fit to discharge the duties of citizenship in an enlightened and independent manner. Nothing could be further from the truth. The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all; it is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to put down dissent and originality. That is its aim in the United States, whatever the pretensions of politicians, pedagogues and other such mountebanks, and that is its aim everywhere else.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Education
Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable.
From Prejudices: Third Series
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Funny
Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.
From A Mencken Chrestomathy
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Happiness
Theology is the effort to explain the unknowable in terms of the not worth knowing.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Religion