H. L. Mencken Quotes About Mankind

• 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.

• The most costly of all follies is to believe passionately in the palpably not true. It is the chief occupation of mankind.

  H. L. Mencken

  Believe, Religion, Occupation

  Prejudices (1926).

• The truth, indeed, is something that mankind, for some mysterious reason, instinctively dislikes. Every man who tries to tell it is unpopular, and even when, by the sheer strength of his case, he prevails, he is put down as a scoundrel.

  H. L. Mencken

  Men, Trying, Mysterious

  Chicago Tribune, May 23, 1926.

• I do not believe in democracy, but I am perfectly willing to admit that it provides the only really amusing form of government ever endured by mankind.

  H. L. Mencken

  Believe, Government, Democracy

  H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.8, Vintage

• There is, it appears, a conspiracy of scientists afoot. Their purpose is to break down religion, propagate immorality, and so reduce mankind to the level of brutes. They are the sworn and sinister agents of Beelzebub, who yearns to conquer the world, and has his eye especially upon Tennessee.]

  H. L. Mencken

  Eye, Science, Conquer The World

• Who will argue that 98.6 Farenheit is the right temperature for man? As for me, I decline to do it. It may be that we are all actually freezing hence the pervading stupidity of mankind. At 110 or 115 degrees even archbishops might be intelligent.

  H. L. Mencken

  Intelligent, Men, Stupidity

  H.L. Mencken (2013). “Minority Report”, p.213, Knopf

• 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

• [Thomas Henry] Huxley, I believe, was the greatest Englishman of the Nineteenth Century—perhaps the greatest Englishman of all time. When one thinks of him, one thinks inevitably of such men as Goethe and Aristotle. For in him there was that rich, incomparable blend of intelligence and character, of colossal knowledge and high adventurousness, of instinctive honesty and indomitable courage which appears in mankind only once in a blue moon. There have been far greater scientists, even in England, but there has never been a scientist who was a greater man.

  H. L. Mencken

  Honesty, Believe, Character

• In any combat between a rogue and a fool the sympathy of mankind is always with the rogue.

  H. L. Mencken

  Sympathy, Rogues, Fool

  H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.616, Vintage

• The time must come inevitably when mankind shall surmount the imbecility of religion, as it has surmounted the imbecility of religion's ally, magic. It is impossible to imagine this world being really civilized so long as so much nonsense survives. In even its highest forms religion embraces concepts that run counter to all common sense. It can be defended only by making assumptions and adopting rules of logic that are never heard of in any other field of human thinking.

  H. L. Mencken

  Running, Thinking, Long

• 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 is a beautiful machine that works very badly. He is like a watch of which the most that can be said is that its cosmetic effect is good.

  H. L. Mencken

  Beautiful, Science, Technology

  H.L. Mencken (2013). “Minority Report”, p.26, Knopf

• The so-called Philosophy of India is even more blowsy and senseless than the metaphysics of the West. It is at war with everything we know of the workings of the human mind, and with every sound idea formulated by mankind. If it prevailed in the whole modern world we'd still be in the Thirteenth Century; nay, we'd be back among the Egyptians of the pyramid age. Its only coherent contribution to Western thought has been theosophy-and theosophy is as idiotic as Christian Science. It has absolutely nothing to offer a civilized white man.

  H. L. Mencken

  Christian, Philosophy, War

• Mankind has failed miserably in its effort to devise a rational system of government. [...] The art of government is the exclusive possession of quacks and frauds. It has been so since the earliest days, and it will probably remain so until the end of time.

  H. L. Mencken

  Art, Government, Effort

  H.L. Mencken (2013). “Minority Report”, p.207, Knopf

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