H. L. Mencken

No one in this world, so far as I know - and I have searched the records for years, and employed agents to help me - has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. ”

Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence. ”

Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats. ”

The cynics are right nine times out of ten. ”

Each party steals so many articles of faith from the other, and the candidates spend so much time making each other's speeches, that by the time election day is past there is nothing much to do save turn the sitting rascals out and let a new gang in. ”

Wealth - any income that is at least one hundred dollars more a year than the income of one's wife's sister's husband. ”

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary. ”

A church is a place in which gentlemen who have never been to heaven brag about it to persons who will never get there. ”

It is impossible to imagine the universe run by a wise, just and omnipotent God, but it is quite easy to imagine it run by a board of gods. ”

It is hard to believe that a man is telling the truth when you know that you would lie if you were in his place. ”