H. L. Mencken Quotes About Revolution

• The cosmos is a gigantic flywheel making 10,000 revolutions per minute. Man is a sick fly taking a dizzy ride on it.

  H. L. Mencken

  Freedom, Men, Sick

  Smart Set, Dec. 1920

• No reporter of my generation, whatever his genius, ever really rated spats and a walking stick until he had covered both a lynching and a revolution.

  H. L. Mencken

  Walking Sticks, Lynching, Revolution

• To sum up: 1. The cosmos is a gigantic fly-wheel making 10,000 revolutions a minute. 2. Man is a sick fly taking a dizzy ride on it. 3. Religion is the theory that the wheel was designed and set spinning to give him the ride.

  H. L. Mencken

  Religious, Men, Giving

  Smart Set, Dec. 1920

• Women hate revolutions and revolutionists. They like men who are docile, and well-regarded at the bank, and never late at meals.

  H. L. Mencken

  Hate, Men, Meals

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

• We must think of human progress, not as of something going on in the race in general, but as something going on in a small minority, perpetually beleaguered in a few walled towns. Now and then the horde of barbarians outside breaks through, and we have an armed effort to halt the process. That is, we have a Reformation, a French Revolution, a war for democracy, a Great Awakening. The minority is decimated and driven to cover. But a few survive- and a few are enough to carry on.

  H. L. Mencken

  War, Thinking, Break Through

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