H.L. Mencken Quotes

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Thank You,
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Puritanism. The haunting fear that
someone, somewhere, may be happy.
- H. L. Mencken

For every complex problem,
there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
- H.L. Mencken

The urge to save humanity is almost always
a false front for the urge to rule.
- H. L. Mencken

Life is a constant oscillation
between the sharp horns of dilemmas.
- H. L. Mencken

Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public.
- H. L. Mencken

A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers,
looks around for a coffin.
- H. L. Mencken

It takes a long while for a naturally trustful person
to reconcile himself to the idea that
after all God will not help him
- H. L. Mencken

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.
- H. L. Mencken

Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief
in the occurrence of the improbable.
- H. L. Mencken

Strike an average between what a woman thinks of her husband
a month before she marries him
and what she thinks of him a year afterward,
and you will have the truth about him.
- H. L. Mencken

The worst government is often the most moral.
One composed of cynics is often very tolerant and humane.
But when fanatics are on top there is no limit to oppression.
- H. L. Mencken

Morality is the theory that every human act
must be either right or wrong,
and that 99 % of them are wrong.
- H. L. Mencken

For centuries, theologians have been explaining
the unknowable in terms of the-not-worth-knowing.
- H. L. Mencken

The objection to Puritans is not that
they try to make us think as they do,
but that they try to make us do as they think.
- H. L. Mencken

Once you know yourself as a genuine seeker,
and when your own inner chamber is quite enlightened,
then comes the natural unfoldment of pure love and compassion
and a genuine desire to serve others.
- Rod Stryker

If you want to make peace with your enemy,
you have to work with your enemy.
Then he becomes your partner.
- Nelson Mandela

Choose Inner Peace.
Nothing is worth losing your inner peace.
Take action as circumstances require,
but never surrender your inner peace.
Stop. Breathe deeply.
Close your eyes and breathe deeply again.
Then, and only then, take action -
from a peaceful heart.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy
is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quiet,
alone with the heavens, nature and God.
Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be.
- Anne Frank

If everyone is moving forward together,
then success takes care of itself.
- Henry Ford

I can't go back to yesterday -
because I was a different person then.
- Lewis Carroll

Our real problem, then, is not our strength today;
it is rather the vital necessity of action today
to ensure our strength tomorrow.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

When you get into a tight place
and everything goes against you,
till it seems you cannot hold on a minute longer,
never give up then, for that is just
the place and time the tide will turn.
- Harriet Beecher Stowe

It is better to lead from behind
and to put others in front,
especially when you celebrate victory
when nice things occur.
You take the front line when there is danger.
Then people will appreciate your leadership.
- Nelson Mandela

This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
- William Shakespeare

Knowledge is soon changed, then lost in the mist, an echo half-heard.
- Gene Wolfe

Always listen to the experts.
They'll tell you what can't be done and why.
Then do it.
- Robert Heinlein

Failure does not exist.
Failure is simply someone else's opinion of how
a certain act should have been completed.
Once you believe that no act must be performed
in any specific other-directed way,
then failing becomes impossible.
- Wayne Dyer

Your work is to discover your world
and then with all your heart give yourself to it.
- The Buddha

Be sure you put your feet in the right place, then stand firm.
- Abraham Lincoln

Know first that you have absolutely no power to change the world,
and then address all your energies and intent toward improving it.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

When the tempest rages, when the thunders roar,
and the lightnings blaze around us
it is then that the truly brave man stands firm at his post.
- Luther Martin

If you believe in forever,
then life is just a one night stand.
- The Righteous Brothers

Although the world is full of suffering,
it is full also of the overcoming of it.
My optimism, then, does not rest on the absence of evil,
but on a glad belief in the preponderance of good
and a willing effort always to cooperate with the good,
that it may prevail.
- Helen Keller

We are what we repeatedly do.
Excellence then is not an act, but a habit.
- Will Durant (commonly attributed to Aristotle)

Instead of comparing our lot with that
of those who are more fortunate than we are,
we should compare it with the lot
of the great majority of our fellow men.
It then appears that we are among the privileged.
- Helen Keller

Play the game for more than you can afford to lose...
only then will you learn the game.
- Winston Churchill

All successful people men and women are big dreamers.
They imagine what their future could be,
ideal in every respect,
and then they work every day toward
their distant vision,
that goal or purpose.
- Brian Tracy

Can you achieve your goals?
You can't reach your goal if you haven't
defined your goals.
And you can't succeed if you don't try -
and then pick yourself up
and try again each time you fail.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Practice yourself, for heaven's sake in little things,
and then proceed to greater.
- Epictetus

You need to make a commitment,
and once you make it,
then life will give you some answers.
- Les Brown

Today, I will do my best...
and then relax in the knowing
that I have done all I could.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

I congratulate myself warmly for each accomplishment,
then ask, "What's next?
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

It is any day better to stand erect
with a broken and bandaged head
then to crawl on one's belly,
in order to be able to save one's head.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

First meditate, be blissful,
then much love will happen of its own accord.
Then being with others is beautiful
and being alone is also beautiful.
Then it is simple, too.
You dont depend on others
and you dont make others dependent on you.
- Osho

First, wash all car. Then wax. Wax on...
Wax on, right hand. Wax off, left hand. Wax on, wax off.
Breathe in through nose, out the mouth. Wax on, wax off.
Don't forget to breathe, very important.
- Miyagi: character in the movie Karate Kid

If we could first know where we are,
and whither we are tending,
we could then better judge what to do,
and how to do it.
- Abraham Lincoln

Look at everything as though you were seeing it
either for the first or last time.
Then your time on earth will be filled with glory.
- Betty Smith

If you have an important point to make,
don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver.
Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again.
Then hit it a third time - a tremendous whack.
- Winston Churchill

To manage your mind,
know that there is nothing,
and then relinquish all attachment to nothingness.
- Lao Tzu

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May the world be kind to you,
and may your own thoughts be gentle upon yourself.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

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