My guess is that well over eighty per cent. of the human race goes through life without having a single original thought.
H. L. MenckenAfter all, the world is not our handiwork, and we are not responsible for what goes on in it, save within very narrow limits.
H. L. MenckenWho ever heard, indeed, of an autobiography that was not (interesting)? I can recall none in all the literature of the world
H. L. MenckenAt the end of one millennium and nine centuries of Christianity, it remains an unshakable assumption of the law in all Christian countries and of the moral judgement of Christians everywhere that if a man and a woman, entering a room together, close the door behind them, the man will come out sadder and the woman wiser.
H. L. MenckenNo man could bring himself to reveal his true character, and, above all, his true limitations as a citizen and a Christian, his true meannesses, his true imbecilities, to his friends, or even to his wife. Honest autobiography is therefore a contradiction in terms: the moment a man considers himself, even in petto, he tries to gild and fresco himself. Thus a man's wife, however realistic her view of him, always flatters him in the end, for the worst she sees in him is appreciably better, by the time she sees it, than what is actually there.
H. L. Mencken