Henry Louis Mencken cytaty

strona 10

„Czas wiele legalizuje – również w dziedzinie moralności.”

„Tępy człowiek jest zawsze pewny siebie, a człowiek pewny siebie jest zawsze tępy.”

„Każdy normalny człowiek ma od czasu do czasu ochotę splunąć w dłonie, zatrzeć ręce, wywiesić czarną flagę na maszcie i zacząć podrzynać gardła.”

„Miłość to złudzenie, że jedna kobieta jest inna niż wszystkie pozostałe.”

„Całujące się kobiety przypominają zawsze bokserów, którzy podają sobie ręce przed walką.”

„Nieżonaci znacznie więcej wiedzą o kobietach niż żonaci – inaczej także byliby żonaci.”

„Pobierając się, mężczyzna i kobieta stają się tylko jednym; główna trudność to ustalić którym.”

„Jeżeli kobieta światowa mówi „nie” – to znaczy „być może”.
Jeżeli mówi „być może” – to znaczy „tak”.
Jeżeli mówi „tak” – to znaczy, że nie jest kobietą światową.
Jeżeli dyplomata mówi „tak” – to znaczy „być może”.
Jeżeli mówi „być może” – to znaczy „nie”.
Jeżeli mówi „nie””

„Mężczyźni mają dużo szczęśliwsze życie niż kobiety; zwykle później się żenią i wcześniej umierają.”

„Każdy ludzki problem ma eleganckie, proste rozwiązanie i zawsze jest ono złe.”

„Jakakolwiek byłaby szczęśliwa w małżeństwie, zawsze miłym jej będzie odkrycie, że istnieje jakiś sympatyczny mężczyzna, który życzyłby sobie, żeby była wolna.”

„Sumienie to wewnętrzny głos ostrzegający nas, że ktoś może patrzeć.”

„Jestem przekonany, że lata szkolne są najbardziej nieszczęśliwymi z całego okresu egzystencji ludzkiej. Są pełne nudy, niezrozumiałych zadań, nowych i nieprzyjemnych obrządków oraz brutalnego pogwałcenia zdrowego rozsądku i przyzwoitości.”

„Cynik to człowiek, który, poczuwszy woń kwiatów, rozgląda się za trumną.”

„Demokracja to kult szakali wyznawany przez osły.”

„Dążenie do zbawienia ludzkości jest najczęściej maską, pod którą ukrywa się dążenie do zdobycia władzy.”

„Miłość jest tryumfem wyobraźni nad inteligencją.”

“I have seen many theoretical objections to democracy, and sometimes urge them with such heat that it probably goes beyond the bound of sound taste, but I am thoroughly convinced, nonetheless, that the democratic nations are happier than any other. The United States today, indeed, is probably the happiest the world has ever seen. Taxes are high, but they are still well within the means of the taxpayer: he could pay twice as much and still survive. The laws are innumerable and idiotic, but only prisoners in the penitentiaries and persons under religious vows ever obey them. The country is governed by rogues, but there is no general dislike of rogues: on the contrary, they are esteemed and envied. Best of all, the people have the pleasant feeling that they can make improvements at any time they want to—... in other words, they are happy. Democrats are always happy. Democracy is a sort of laughing gas. It will not cure anything, perhaps, but it unquestionably stops the pain.”

“The final test of truth is ridicule. Very few dogmas have ever faced it and survived. Huxley laughed the devils out of the Gadarene swine. Not the laws of the United States but the mother-in-law joke brought the Mormons to surrender. Not the horror of it but the absurdity of it killed the doctrine of infant damnation. But the razor edge of ridicule is turned by the tough hide of truth. How loudly the barber-surgeons laughed at Huxley—and how vainly! What clown ever brought down the house like Galileo? Or Columbus? Or Darwin?... They are laughing at Nietzsche yet...”

“The highfalutin aims of democracy, whether real or imaginary, are always assumed to be identical with its achievements. This, of course, is sheer hallucination. Not one of those aims, not even the aim of giving every adult a vote, has been realized. It has no more made men wise and free than Christianity has made them good.”

“The older I grow the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom.... Certainly it would be difficult to imagine any committee of relatively young men, of thirty or thirty-five, showing the unbroken childishness, ignorance and lack of humor of the Supreme Court of the United States. The average age of the learned justices must be well beyond sixty, and all of them are supposed to be of finished and mellowed sagacity. Yet their knowledge of the most ordinary principles of justice often turns out to be extremely meager, and when they spread themselves grandly upon a great case their reasoning powers are usually found to be precisely equal to those of a respectable Pullman conductor.”

“I believe that liberty is the only genuinely valuable thing that men have invented, at least in the field of government, in a thousand years. I believe that it is better to be free than to be not free, even when the former is dangerous and the latter safe. I believe that the finest qualities of man can flourish only in free air – that progress made under the shadow of the policeman’s club is false progress, and of no permanent value. I believe that any man who takes the liberty of another into his keeping is bound to become a tyrant, and that any man who yields up his liberty, in however slight the measure, is bound to become a slave.”

“My literary theory, like my politics, is based chiefly upon one idea, to wit, the idea of freedom. I am, in belief, a libertarian of the most extreme variety.”

“Civilization, in fact, grows more and more maudlin and hysterical; especially under democracy it tends to degenerate into a mere combat of crazes; 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, most of them imaginary.”

“I believe that religion, generally speaking, has been a curse to mankind — that its modest and greatly overestimated services on the ethical side have been more than overcome by the damage it has done to clear and honest thinking.
I believe that no discovery of fact, however trivial, can be wholly useless to the race, and that no trumpeting of falsehood, however virtuous in intent, can be anything but vicious.
I believe that all government is evil, in that all government must necessarily make war upon liberty; and the democratic form is as bad as any of the other forms.
I believe that the evidence for immortality is no better than the evidence of witches, and deserves no more respect.
I believe in the complete freedom of thought and speech — alike for the humblest man and the mightiest, and in the utmost freedom of conduct that is consistent with living in organized society.
I believe in the capacity of man to conquer his world, and to find out what it is made of, and how it is run.
I believe in the reality of progress.
I —But the whole thing, after all, may be put very simply. I believe that it is better to tell the truth than to lie. I believe that it is better to be free than to be a slave. And I believe that it is better to know than be ignorant.”

“My belief is that every man after fifty-five is always ill more or less.”

“Before a man speaks it is always safe to assume that he is a fool. After he speaks, it is seldom necessary to assume it.”