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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
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
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
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
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
Morality is the theory that every human act
must be either right or wrong,
and that 99 % of them are wrong.
- 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
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
Love is like war: easy to begin but very hard to stop.
- H. L. Mencken
For centuries, theologians have been explaining
the unknowable in terms of the-not-worth-knowing.
- 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
Criticism is prejudice made plausible.
- H. L. Mencken
Happiness is the china shop; love is the bull.
- 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
A good politician is quite as unthinkable as an honest burglar.
- H. L. Mencken
Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief
in the occurrence of the improbable.
- H. L. Mencken
For every complex problem,
there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
- H.L. Mencken
Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public.
- H. L. Mencken
Marriage is a wonderful institution,
but who would want to live in an institution?
- H. L. Mencken
Love is the delusion that one woman differs from another.
- H. L. Mencken
The urge to save humanity is almost always
a false front for the urge to rule.
- 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
The mind is not a vessel to be filled
but a fire to be kindled.
- Plutarch
You will not be punished for your anger,
you will be punished by your anger.
- The Buddha
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
A good traveler has no fixed plans,
and is not intent on arriving.
- Lao Tzu
"Just living is not enough," said the butterfly,
"one must have sunshine, freedom and a little flower."
- Hans Christian Andersen
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
Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.
- Lao Tzu
The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough.
- Rabindranath Tagore
Everything has beauty,
but not everyone sees it.
- Confucius
Every child comes with the message
that God is not yet discouraged of man.
- Rabindranath Tagore
The true meaning of life is to plant trees,
under whose shade you do not expect to sit.
- Nelson Henderson
The essence of life is not in
the great victories and grand failures,
but in the simple joys.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
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
Love does not claim possession, but gives freedom.
- Rabindranath Tagore
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
I am not afraid of storms
for I am learning how to sail my ship.
- Louisa May Alcott
The beauty does not live out there;
the beauty's in my eyes.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Lord, grant that I might not so much
seek to be loved as to love.
- St. Francis of Assisi
If things are not as you wish,
wish them as they are.
- Yiddish Proverb
I do not need anyone's permission to be my true self.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Life is not about how fast you run
or how high you climb
but how well you bounce.
- Vivian Komori
You do not need anyone's permission to be your true self.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Circumstance does not make the man: it reveals him to himself.
- James Allen
Everything is a miracle,
not just the beautiful and lovely things.
- Anonymous
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
Stand Tall, Stand Proud.
Know that you are unique and magnificent.
You do not need the approval of others.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Our lives are defined not by the challenges we encounter,
but by how we respond to those challenges.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Do not let what you cannot do
interfere with what you can do.
- John Wooden
It's not the size of the dog in the fight,
it's the size of the fight in the dog.
- Mark Twain
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
Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek,
but a means by which we arrive at that goal.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
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)
Not everything that casts a long shadow is to be feared.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Do not follow where the path may lead.
Go, instead, where there is no path and leave a trail.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
To the people who love you,
you are beautiful already.
This is not because they're
blind to your shortcomings
but because they so clearly see your soul.
- Victoria Moran
Adventure is not outside man; it is within.
- George Eliot
Truth is not defined by
how many people believe something.
Ask. Question. Think.
Decide - for yourself.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Do not blame the thistle that you see no beauty.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
If not us, who, if not now, when?
- Anonymous
The wise man in the storm prays God,
not for safety from danger,
but for deliverance from fear.
It is the storm within which endangers him,
not the storm without.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
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)
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
If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant.
If we did not sometimes taste of adversity,
prosperity would not be so welcome.
- Anne Bradstreet
Let us not pray to be sheltered from dangers
but to be fearless when facing them.
- Rabindranath Tagore
The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance -
it is the illusion of knowledge.
- Daniel J. Boorstin
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- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
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