H. L. Mencken Quotes About Hell

• Sunday is a day given over by Americans to wishing that the themselves were dead and in Heaven, and that their neighbors were dead and in Hell.

  H. L. Mencken

  Sunday, Heaven, Wish

  "A little book in C major".

• The man who boasts that he habitually tells the truth is simply a man with no respect for it. It is not a thing to be thrown about loosely, like small change; it is something to be cherished and hoarded and disbursed only when absolutely necessary. The smallest atom of truth represents some man's bitter toil and agony; for every ponderable chunk of it there is a brave truth-seeker's grave upon some lonely ash-dump and a soul roasting in Hell.

  H. L. Mencken

  Lonely, Truth, Lying

  1922 Prejudices, 3rd series, ch.14.

• As long as you represent me as praising alcohol I shall not complain. It is, I believe, the greatest of human inventions, and by far - much greater than Hell, the radio or the bichloride tablet.

  H. L. Mencken

  Believe, Food, Long

• Kant was probably the worst writer ever heard of on earth before Karl Marx. Some of his ideas were really quite simple, but he always managed to make them seem unintelligible. I hope he is in Hell.

  H. L. Mencken

  Simple, Ideas, Earth

• The smallest atom of truth represents some man's bitter toil and agony; for every ponderable chunk of it there is a brave truth-seeker's grave upon some lonely ash-dump and a soul roasting in hell.

  H. L. Mencken

  Lonely, Truth, Honesty

  H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.15, Vintage

• Life may not be exactly pleasant, but it is at least not dull. Heave yourself into Hell today, and you may miss, tomorrow or next day, another Scopes trial, or another War to End War, or perchance a rich and buxom widow with all her first husband's clothes. There are always more Hardings hatching. I advocate hanging on as long as possible.

  H. L. Mencken

  Husband, War, Next Day

  American Mercury, Apr. 1928

• It is Hell, of course, that makes priests powerful, not Heaven, for after thousands of years of so-called civilization fear remains the one common denominator of mankind

  H. L. Mencken

  Powerful, Inspiration, Years

• One may no more live in the world without picking up the moral prejudices of the world than one will be able to go to hell without perspiring.

  H. L. Mencken

  Prejudice, Literature, World

  H. L. Mencken, Marion Elizabeth Rodgers (2010). “H.L. Mencken: Prejudices: First, Second, and Third Series”, Hubsta Ltd

• The book of Genesis, a farrago of nonsense so wholly absurd that even Sunday-school scholars have to be threatened with Hell to make them accept it.

  H. L. Mencken

  Book, School, Sunday

  H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.202, Vintage

• What is the function that a clergyman performs in the world? Answer: He gets his living by assuring idiots that he can save them from an imaginary hell.

  H. L. Mencken

  Answers, World, Idiot

  H.L. Mencken (2013). “Minority Report”, p.180, Knopf

• Every man is his own hell.

  H. L. Mencken

  Men, Literature, Hell

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

• After all is said and done, a hell lot of a lot more is said than done.

  H. L. Mencken

  Done, Hell, Said

You May Also Like:

George Jean Nathan

Friedrich Nietzsche

Mark Twain

Clarence Darrow

Sinclair Lewis

Ambrose Bierce

John T. Scopes