H. L. Mencken Quotes About Agnosticism

• I believe that religion, generally speaking, has been a curse to mankind.

  H. L. Mencken

  Religious, Believe, Religion

  "What I Believe" in The Forum 84 (p. 139), September 1930.

• I believe that religion, generally speaking, has been a curse to mankind - that its modest and greatly overestimated services on the ethical side have been more than overcome by the damage it has done to clear and honest thinking.

  H. L. Mencken

  Believe, Thinking, Religion

  "What I Believe". "The Forum", 84, (p. 139), September 1930.

• Well, I tell you, if I have been wrong in my agnosticism, when I die I'll walk up to God in a manly way and say, Sir, I made an honest mistake.

  H. L. Mencken

  Atheist, Honesty, Mistake

• Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable.

  H. L. Mencken

  Faith, Freedom, Believe

  Prejudices, Third Series ch. 14 (1922)

• Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable.... A man full of faith is simply one who has lost (or never had) the capacity for clear and realistic thought. He is not a mere ass: he is actually ill.

  H. L. Mencken

  Men, May, Belief

  H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.11, Vintage

• A man full of faith is simply one who has lost the capacity for clear and realistic thought.

  H. L. Mencken

  Faith, Atheist, Men

  H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.11, Vintage

• The most satisfying and ecstatic faith is almost purely agnostic. It trusts absolutely without professing to know at all.

  H. L. Mencken

  Agnostic, Ecstatic, Knows

  H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.89, Vintage

• God is the immemorial refuge of the incompetent, the helpless, and the miserable. They find not only sanctuary in his arms, but also a kind of superiority, soothing to their macerated egos; he will set them above their betters.

  H. L. Mencken

  Ego, Sanctuary, Arms

• All great religions, in order to escape absurdity, have to admit a dilution of agnosticism. It is only the savage, whether of the African bush or the American gospel tent, who pretends to know the will and intent of God exactly and completely.

  H. L. Mencken

  Order, Religion, Atheism

  H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.89, Vintage

• A man who is an agnostic by inheritance, so that he doesn't remember any time that he wasn't, has almost no hatred for the religious.

  H. L. Mencken

  Religious, Men, Hatred

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