A good politician is quite as unthinkable as an honest burglar.
- H. L. Mencken
Related topics: Cynical Government Political
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
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
Legend: A lie that has attained the dignity of age.
- H. L. Mencken
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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 urge to save humanity is almost always
a false front for the urge to rule.
- H. L. Mencken
Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence.
- H. L. Mencken
The believing mind is eternally impervious to evidence.
- H. L. Mencken
Happiness is the china shop; love is the bull.
- H. L. Mencken
Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public.
- H. L. Mencken
Criticism is prejudice made plausible.
- 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
Love is like war: easy to begin but very hard to stop.
- H. L. Mencken
For every complex problem,
there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
- H.L. Mencken
Conscience is a mother-in-law whose visit never ends.
- H. L. Mencken
For centuries, theologians have been explaining
the unknowable in terms of the-not-worth-knowing.
- H. L. Mencken
Puritanism. The haunting fear that
someone, somewhere, may be happy.
- 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
A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers,
looks around for a coffin.
- H. L. Mencken
Love is the delusion that one woman differs from another.
- H. L. Mencken
Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief
in the occurrence of the improbable.
- 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
Morality is the theory that every human act
must be either right or wrong,
and that 99 % of them are wrong.
- H. L. Mencken
Life is a constant oscillation
between the sharp horns of dilemmas.
- H. L. Mencken
Marriage is a wonderful institution,
but who would want to live in an institution?
- H. L. Mencken
Joy is what happens to us when we allow ourselves
to recognize how good things really are.
- Marianne Williamson
He who can no longer pause to wonder
and stand rapt in awe,
is as good as dead;
his eyes are closed.
- Albert Einstein
Write your Sad times in Sand,
Write your Good times in Stone.
- George Bernard Shaw
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph
is for enough good men to do nothing.
- Edmund Burke
A good traveler has no fixed plans,
and is not intent on arriving.
- Lao Tzu
A true friend is someone who
thinks that you are a good egg
even though he knows that
you are slightly cracked.
- Bernard Meltzer
Start living now.
Stop saving the good china
for that special occasion.
Stop withholding your love
until that special person materializes.
Every day you are alive is a special occasion.
Every minute, every breath, is a gift from God.
- Mary Manin Morrissey
May love and laughter light your days,
and warm your heart and home.
May good and faithful friends be yours,
wherever you may roam.
May peace and plenty bless your world
with joy that long endures.
May all life's passing seasons
bring the best to you and yours.
- Irish Blessing
The River of Life has no meaning,
no good, no bad, no better, no worse,
no love, no hate, no fear, no anger, no joy.
The River of Life has no judgment, no expectation.
The River of Life just IS.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
The first question which the priest and the Levite asked was:
"If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?"
But... the good Samaritan reversed the question:
"If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?"
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
Play to win, but be a good loser.
Have a plan for your life,
but accept whatever comes your way
with grace and gratitude.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Treat those who are good with goodness,
and also treat those who are not good with goodness.
Thus goodness is attained.
Be honest to those who are honest,
and be also honest to those who are not honest.
Thus honesty is attained.
- Lao Tzu
If the problem can be solved,
there is no use worrying about it.
If it can't be solved,
worrying will do no good.
- Tibetan proverb
I believe that everything happens for a reason.
People change so that you can learn to let go,
things go wrong so that you appreciate them when they're right,
you believe lies so you eventually learn to trust no one but yourself,
and sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together.
- Marilyn Monroe
We shall never know all the good that a simple smile can do.
- Mother Teresa
There is nothing either good or bad,
but thinking makes it so.
- William Shakespeare
A sense of humor... is needed armor.
Joy in one's heart and some laughter on one's lips
is a sign that the person down deep
has a pretty good grasp of life.
- Hugh Sidey
No good comes from hurrying.
- Yiddish Proverb
Regrets are the tears of good deeds left undone
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
It is good to have an end to journey towards;
but it is the journey that matters in the end.
- Ursula K. Le Guin
Despite everything, I believe that people are really good at heart.
- Anne Frank
One of the sanest, surest, and most generous joys of life
comes from being happy over the good fortune of others.
- Robert A. Heinlein
Faith is trusting in the good.
Fear is putting your trust in the bad.
- Rhonda Byrne
By having a reverence for life,
we enter into a spiritual relation with the world.
By practicing reverence for life we become good, deep, and alive.
- Albert Schweitzer
It all comes to this:
the simplest way to be happy is to do good.
- Helen Keller
Since you get more joy out of giving joy to others,
you should put a good deal of thought
into the happiness that you are able to give.
- Eleanor Roosevelt
You have enemies? Good.
That means you've stood up for something,
sometime in your life.
- Winston Churchill
Self-care is critical to having a strong inner foundation.
Taking good care of YOU means the people in your life
will receive the best of you rather than what is left of you.
- Lorraine Cohen
Good works are links that form a chain of love.
- Mother Teresa
Don't be afraid to give up the good to go for the great.
- John D. Rockefeller
Aim above morality.
Be not simply good,
be good for something.
- Henry David Thoreau
I believe that every human mind feels pleasure
in doing good to another.
- Thomas Jefferson
As you discover your daily good,
and believe in it, and think about it,
expect it to continue.
- Ernest Holmes
The way to gain a good reputation is to endeavor
to be what you desire to appear.
- Socrates
If it's a good idea, go ahead and do it.
It is much easier to apologize than it is to get permission.
- Grace Hopper
I expect to pass through this world but once.
Any good therefore that I can do,
or any kindness that I can show to my fellow-creature,
let me do it now.
Let me not defer or neglect it,
for I shall not pass this way again.
- William Penn
There is no goodness in attempting to coerce
another person into performing a good deed.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Non-cooperation with evil is as much a duty as is cooperation with good.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi
It is always a good day to be grateful for all of life -
grateful for large blessings and small.
Especially to be grateful for the symbolic blessings -
the rainbows and butterflies that come into our lives
when we least expect and most need them.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
If you have a particular faith or religion,
that is good. But you can survive without it.
- Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama
Pick up a stone that feels good to you
and is small enough to hold in one hand.
Consider how long that stone has been around
and what enormous pressure it has experienced.
Draw strength from its long history.
- Mary Anne Radmacher
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
Good humor is the health of the soul,
sadness is its poison.
- Lord Chesterfield
The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression
and cruelty by the bad people
but the silence over that by the good people.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
There is more value in a very good painting
that is completed and on display,
than in an excellent painting
that is still in the artist's studio,
or perhaps still in his mind.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
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and may your own thoughts be gentle upon yourself.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
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