Henry Louis Mencken

Our high respect for a well read person is praise enough for literature.

Amidst all the clutter, beyond all the obstacles, aside from all the static, are the goals set. Put your head down, do the best job possible, let the flak pass, and work towards those goals.

One wanders to the left, another to the right. Both are equally in error, but, are seduced by different delusions.

It is by the goodness of God that we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either of them.

She was not quite what you would call refined. She was not quite what you would call unrefined. She was the kind of person that keeps a parrot.

This world is but a canvas to our imagination.

A friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature.

If history repeats itself, and the unexpected always happens, how incapable must Man be of learning from experience.

When any calamity has been suffered the first thing to be remembered is, how much has been escaped.

Out of love and hatred, out of earnings and borrowings and leadings and losses; out of sickness and pain; out of wooing and worshipping; out of traveling and voting and watching and caring; out of disgrace and contempt, comes our tuition in the serene and beautiful laws.

It is not he who gains the exact point in dispute who scores most in controversy – but he who has shown the better temper.

Choose silence of all virtues, for by it you hear other men’s imperfections, and conceal your own.

Every man supposes himself not to be fully understood or appreciated.

Reasonable people adapt themselves to the world. Unreasonable people attempt to adapt the world to themselves. All progress, therefore, depends on unreasonable people.

If a man sits down to think, he is immediately asked if has a headache.