H. L. Mencken Quotes About Animals

• A politician is an animal which can sit on a fence and yet keep both ears to the ground.

  H. L. Mencken

  Freedom, Animal, Democracy

• One horse-laugh is worth ten thousand syllogisms. It is not only more effective; it is also vastly more intelligent.

  H. L. Mencken

  Horse, Laughter, Anger

  H. L. Mencken (1924). “Prejudices Fourth Series”

• There is nothing worse than an idle hour, with no occupation offering. People who have many such hours are simply animals waiting docilely for death. We all come to that state soon or late. It is the curse of senility.

  H. L. Mencken

  Death, Animal, Offering

  H.L. Mencken (2013). “Minority Report”, p.86, Knopf

• The capacity of human beings to bore one another seems to be vastly greater than that of any other animal.

  H. L. Mencken

  Book, Reading, Animal

  Notebooks (1956) "Minority Report"

• Men are the only animals that devote themselves, day in and day out, to making one another unhappy. It is an art like any other. Its virtuosi are called altruists.

  H. L. Mencken

  Art, Animal, Men

  H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.617, Vintage

• The capacity of human beings to bore one another seems to be vastly greater than that of any other animal. Some of their most esteemed inventions have no other apparent purpose - for example, the dinner party of more than two, the epic poem, and the science of metaphysics.

  H. L. Mencken

  Funny, Party, Humor

  H.L. Mencken (2013). “Minority Report”, p.68, Knopf

• Man is the yokel par excellence, the booby unmatchable, the king dupe of the cosmos. He is chronically and unescapably deceived, not only by the other animals and by the delusive face of nature herself--by his incomparable talent for searching out and embracing what is false, and for overlooking and denying what is true.

  H. L. Mencken

  Kings, Animal, Men

  H. L. Mencken (2009). “Prejudices: Third Series”, p.128, Cosimo, Inc.

• Man, at his best, remains a sort of one-lunged animal, never completely rounded and perfect, as a cockroach, say, is perfect.

  H. L. Mencken

  Animal, Men, Perfect

  H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.19, Vintage

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