Facebook share Tweet This Email this
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
Related topics: Cynical Religion
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
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
Please sign-up for my Free Inspirational Daily Email on the form below.
Legend: A lie that has attained the dignity of age.
- H. L. Mencken
A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers,
looks around for a coffin.
- H. L. Mencken
Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence.
- H. L. Mencken
Conscience is a mother-in-law whose visit never ends.
- H. L. Mencken
The believing mind is eternally impervious to evidence.
- 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
Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief
in the occurrence of the improbable.
- H. L. Mencken
Love is like war: easy to begin but very hard to stop.
- 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
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
Marriage is a wonderful institution,
but who would want to live in an institution?
- 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
Happiness is the china shop; love is the bull.
- H. L. Mencken
For centuries, theologians have been explaining
the unknowable in terms of the-not-worth-knowing.
- H. L. Mencken
Criticism is prejudice made plausible.
- H. L. Mencken
A good politician is quite as unthinkable as an honest burglar.
- 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 delusion that one woman differs from another.
- H. L. Mencken
Life is a constant oscillation
between the sharp horns of dilemmas.
- 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 am not afraid of storms
for I am learning how to sail my ship.
- Louisa May Alcott
The world is perfect. It's a mess.
It has always been a mess.
We are not going to change it.
Our job is to straighten out our own lives.
- Joseph Campbell
Lord, grant that I might not so much
seek to be loved as to love.
- St. Francis of Assisi
Love does not claim possession, but gives freedom.
- Rabindranath Tagore
Everything has beauty,
but not everyone sees it.
- Confucius
The essence of life is not in
the great victories and grand failures,
but in the simple joys.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
A good traveler has no fixed plans,
and is not intent on arriving.
- Lao Tzu
The true meaning of life is to plant trees,
under whose shade you do not expect to sit.
- Nelson Henderson
The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough.
- Rabindranath Tagore
Every child comes with the message
that God is not yet discouraged of man.
- Rabindranath Tagore
Love one another but make not a bond of love.
Let it rather be a moving sea
between the shores of your souls.
- Khalil Gibran
The mind is not a vessel to be filled
but a fire to be kindled.
- Plutarch
"Just living is not enough," said the butterfly,
"one must have sunshine, freedom and a little flower."
- Hans Christian Andersen
Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.
- Lao Tzu
To know yet to think that one does not know is best;
Not to know yet to think that one knows
will lead to difficulty.
- Lao Tzu
You will not be punished for your anger,
you will be punished by your anger.
- The Buddha
The beauty does not live out there;
the beauty's in my eyes.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our Light, not our Darkness, that most frightens us.
- Marianne Williamson
Everything is a miracle,
not just the beautiful and lovely things.
- Anonymous
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
I do not need anyone's permission to be my true self.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Self-respect is not a function of size, age, or wealth.
Breathe deep, sing loud and sweet,
"I am me, I am unique, I am magnificent."
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
If not us, who, if not now, when?
- Anonymous
Don't underestimate the value of Doing Nothing,
of just going along,
listening to all the things you can't hear,
and not bothering.
- A. A. Milne (Winnie-The-Pooh)
Imagine all the people living life in peace.
You may say I'm a dreamer,
but I'm not the only one.
I hope someday you'll join us,
and the world will be as one.
- John Lennon
A ship in harbor is safe -
but that is not what ships are for.
- John A. Shedd
The worst sin toward our fellow creatures
is not to hate them,
but to be indifferent to them:
that's the essence of inhumanity.
- George Bernard Shaw
Your task is not to seek for love,
but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself
that you have built against it.
- A Course In Miracles (commonly misattributed to Rumi)
We are what we repeatedly do.
Excellence then is not an act, but a habit.
- Will Durant (commonly attributed to Aristotle)
One can not reflect in streaming water.
Only those who know internal peace can give it to others.
- Lao Tzu
Far away there in the sunshine are my highest aspirations.
I may not reach them, but I can look up and see their beauty,
believe in them, and try to follow where they lead.
- Louisa May Alcott
One does not discover new lands without consenting
to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.
- Andre Gide
We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors,
we borrow it from our children.
- Native American Proverb
It's not whether you get knocked down;
it's whether you get back up.
- Vince Lombardi
Life may not be the party we hoped for,
but while we are here we might as well dance.
- Anonymous
Love is granting another the space to be
the way they are and the way they are not.
- Werner Erhard
Stand Tall, Stand Proud.
Know that you are unique and magnificent.
You do not need the approval of others.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Riches do not exhilarate us so much with their possession
as they torment us with their loss.
- Epicurus
A thankful heart is not only the greatest virtue,
but the parent of all other virtues.
- Cicero
It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves.
- Edmund Hillary
The possession of knowledge does not
kill the sense of wonder and mystery.
There is always more mystery.
- Anais Nin
We are not held back by the love we didn't receive in the past,
but by the love we're not extending in the present.
- Marianne Williamson
Life is NOT "Supposed to be Fair."
Know that there is no single way that life is "supposed" to be.
Demanding that life meet our expectations
is a sure fire recipe for a miserable existence.
Life is a game with no rules.
Life just happens to us regardless of our best intentions.
Our only path to happiness lies in being open
to receiving whatever life throws at us -
with Gratitude. Have NO Expectations of life.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Our greatest glory is not in never falling,
but in rising every time we fall.
- Confucius
Do not allow obligation or immediacy to
bind you to physical things or specific actions.
- Mary Anne Radmacher
---------
Thank you for visiting: The objection to Puritans is not that by H. L. Mencken.
Please sign up on the form below to receive
my Free Daily Inspiration - Daily Quotes email.
You can also search my large collection of Quotes and Sayings.
May the world be kind to you,
and may your own thoughts be gentle upon yourself.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
All materials & writings are copyright ©. You may read about our disclaimer, our privacy policy, our copyright policy, terms of use, participation in affiliate programs, and the list of all our websites.