“Theology — An effort to explain the unknowable by putting it into terms of the not worth knowing.”
1940s–present, A Mencken Chrestomathy (1949)
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
H.L. Mencken281
American journalist and writer 1880–1956Related quotes
Hugo De Vries (1848–1935) Dutch botanist
Concluding sentence of his work Species and Varieties: Their Origin by Mutation (1904), The Open Court Publishing Company, Chicago, p. 826.
Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States
1900s, Address at the Prize Day Exercises at Groton School (1904)
Context: Of course, the worst of all lives is the vicious life; the life of a man who becomes a positive addition to the forces of evil in a community. Next to that and when I am speaking to people who, by birth and training and standing, ought to amount to a great deal, I have a right to say only second to it in criminality comes the life of mere vapid ease, the ignoble life of a man who desires nothing from his years but that they shall be led with the least effort, the least trouble, the greatest amount of physical enjoyment or intellectual enjoyment of a mere dilettante type. The life that is worth living, and the only life that is worth living, is the life of effort, the life of effort to attain what is worth striving for.
Roger Haight (1936) American theologian
Source: Dynamics Of Theology, Chapter Ten, Method in theology, p. 192
“Only the impossible is worth the effort.”
Jeanette Winterson (1959) English writer
The Powerbook (2000)
Bill Watterson (1958) American comic artist
Source: The Indispensable Calvin and Hobbes
Leslie Stephen (1832–1904) British author, literary critic, and first editor of the Dictionary of National Biography
The Fortnightly Review, vol. 34 (1880) p. 177
“No culture can be explained in terms of one or more leaders”
Peter Farb (1929–1980) American academic and writer
Man's Rise to Civilization (1968)
Context: We are in the habit of thinking in terms of great leaders largely because the leaders themselves want it that way. The pharaohs ordered that a record of their accomplishments be carved on stone; medieval nobles subsidized troubadours to sing their praises; today's world leaders have large staffs of public-relations consultants. No culture can be explained in terms of one or more leaders...<!-- p. 93
“The sun rose slowly, as if it wasn't sure it was worth all the effort.”
Terry Pratchett book The Light Fantastic
Source: The Light Fantastic
“Superhuman effort isn't worth a damn unless it achieves results.”
Ernest Shackleton (1874–1922) Anglo-Irish polar explorer