A man's women folk, whatever their outward show of respect for his merit and authority, always regard him secretly as an ass, and with something akin to pity. His most gaudy sayings and doings seldom deceive them; they see the actual man within, and know him for a shallow and pathetic fellow. In this fact, perhaps, lies one of the best proofs of feminine intelligence, or, as the common phrase makes it, feminine intuition.
H. L. MenckenThe trouble with Communism is the Communists, just as the trouble with Christianity is the Christians.
H. L. MenckenWhat the meaning of human life may be I don't know: I incline to suspect that it has none.
H. L. MenckenTaxation, for example, is eternally lively; it concerns nine-tenths of us more directly than either smallpox or golf, and has just as much drama in it; moreover, it has been mellowed and made gay by as many gaudy, preposterous theories
H. L. MenckenSocialism: nothing more than the theory that the slave is always more virtuous than his master.
H. L. MenckenThe demagogue is one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots.
H. L. MenckenAs long as the Southern colleges have revivals on their campuses and students get converted to Methodism and join the YMCA and are accepted as gentlemen, it will be impossible to think of the South as civilized...The educated folk of the Old South took theology lightly, and religion to them was hardly more than a charming ritual, useful on solemn occassions.
H. L. Mencken