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H.L. Mencken Quotes and Sayings
Quotes by H.L. Mencken

Marriage is a wonderful institution,
but who would want to live in an institution?
- H. L. Mencken

Related topics: Funny Marriage

Legend: A lie that has attained the dignity of age.
- H. L. Mencken

Love is the delusion that one woman differs from another.
- H. L. Mencken

Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence.
- H. L. Mencken

Love is like war: easy to begin but very hard to stop.
- 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

We must respect the other fellow's religion,
but only in the sense and to the extent
that we respect his theory that
his wife is beautiful and his children smart.
- H. L. Mencken

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

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

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

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

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

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

Happiness is the china shop; love is the bull.
- H. L. Mencken

Conscience is a mother-in-law whose visit never ends.
- 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

A good politician is quite as unthinkable as an honest burglar.
- 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

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

Criticism is prejudice made plausible.
- H. L. Mencken

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

The believing mind is eternally impervious to evidence.
- 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

I believe that it is better to tell the truth than a lie.
I believe it is better to be free than to be a slave.
And I believe it is better to know than to be ignorant.
- H.L. Mencken

Marriage Quotes and Sayings

Every good relationship, especially marriage, is based on respect.
If it's not based on respect,
nothing that appears to be good will last very long.
- Amy Grant

Why does a woman work ten years to change a man's habits
and then complain that he's not the man she married?
- Barbra Streisand

Men who have a pierced ear are better prepared for marriage -
they've experienced pain and bought jewelry.
- Rita Rudner

Marriage is a sort of friendship recognized by the police.
- Anonymous

The formula for achieving a successful relationship is simple:
you should treat all disasters as if they were trivialities
but never treat a triviality as if it were a disaster.
- Quentin Crisp

Make sure you never, never argue at night.
You just lose a good night's sleep,
and you can't settle anything until morning anyway.
- Rose Kennedy

The secret of a happy marriage remains a secret.
- Henny Youngman

Marriage is a fine institution -
but I'm not ready for an institution yet.
- Mae West

A man's friendships are, like his will,
invalidated by marriage -
but they are also no less invalidated
by the marriage of his friends.
- Samuel Butler

The four most important words in any marriage...
"I'll do the dishes."
- Anonymous

A divorce is like an amputation:
you survive it, but there's less of you.
- Margaret Atwood

Marriage has no guarantees.
If that's what you're looking for,
go live with a car battery.
- Erma Bombeck

When I eventually met Mr. Right
I had no idea that his first name was Always.
- Rita Rudner

Getting divorced just because you don't love a man
is almost as silly as getting married just because you do.
- Zsa Zsa Gabor

Whenever I date a guy, I think,
"Is this the man I want my children
to spend their weekends with?"
- Rita Rudner

I haven't reported my missing credit card to the police
because whoever stole it is spending less than my wife.
- Ilie Nastase

One good Husband is worth two good Wives;
for the scarcer things are, the more they're valued.
- Benjamin Franklin

I love being married.
It's so great to find that one special person
you want to annoy for the rest of your life.
- Rita Rudner

Always remember the three magic words: You're right dear.
- Anonymous

Marriages don't last. When I meet a guy,
the first question I ask myself is:
is this the man I want my children to spend their weekends with?
- Rita Rudner

They have come up with a perfect understanding.
He won't try to run her life,
and he won't try to run his, either.
- Anonymous

When people get married because they think
it's a long-time love affair,
they'll be divorced very soon,
because all love affairs end in disappointment.
But marriage is a recognition of a spiritual identity.
- Joseph Campbell

(Groom), take (Bride)'s hand and place your hand over hers.
Now, remember this moment and cherish it...
because this will be the last time you ever have the upper hand.
- Anonymous

My husband melted my heart the day he asked me,
"Can I participate in your wonder?"
In whose wonder do you get to participate today?
- Mary Anne Radmacher

Never go to bed mad. Stay up and fight.
- Phyllis Diller

I was married by a judge.
I should have asked for a jury.
- Groucho Marx

It's not as great a day for the bride as she thinks.
She's not marrying the best man.
- Anonymous

When two people decide to get a divorce,
it isn't a sign that they "don't understand" one another,
but a sign that they have, at last, begun to.
- Helen Rowland

Do not marry a man to reform him.
That is what reform schools are for.
- Mae West

A Great Relationship is the Dance of Two Great Lives.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The Wedding March always reminds me of the music
played when soldiers go into battle.
- Heinrich Heine

You never really know a man until you have divorced him.
- Zsa Zsa Gabor

A man likes his wife to be
just clever enough to appreciate his cleverness,
and just stupid enough to admire it.
- Israel Zangwill

No man is truly married until he understands
every word his wife is NOT saying.
- Anonymous

Never argue at the dinner table, for the one who is not hungry
always gets the best of the argument.
- Voltaire

The greatest roadblock to a great relationship
is trying to force a partner to change through bribes or threats.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

In order to be happy with a man,
you must understand him a lot and love him a little.
To be happy with a woman, you must love her a lot
and not try to understand her at all.
- Helen Rowland

Husbands should be like Kleenex:
soft, strong, and disposable.
- the movie Clue (1985)

Women marry men hoping they will change.
Men marry women hoping they will not.
- Albert Einstein

He's the kind of man a woman would have to marry to get rid of.
- Mae West

A dream you dream alone is only a dream.
A dream you dream together becomes reality.
- John Lennon

Love does not begin and end the way we seem to think it does.
Love is a battle, love is a war; love is a growing up.
- James A. Baldwin

He early on let her know who is the boss.
He looked her right in the eye and clearly said, "You're the boss."
- Anonymous humor

I have often wanted to drown my troubles,
but I can't get my wife to go swimming.
- Anonymous

A man is incomplete until he is married.
After that, he is finished.
- Zsa Zsa Gabor

Marriage, ultimately, is the practice of
becoming passionate friends.
- Harville Hendrix

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Today is Your Day to Dance Lightly with Life.  It Really Is.
      - Jonathan Lockwood Huie