If, after I depart this vale, you ever remember me and have thought to please my ghost, forgive some sinner and wink your eye at some homely girl. – H.L. Mencken
Taxation, for example, is eternally lively; it concerns nine-tenths of us more directly than either smallpox or golf, and has just as much drama in it; moreover, it has been mellowed and made gay by as many gaudy, preposterous theories. – H.L. Mencken
In this world of sin and sorrow there is always something to be thankful for; as for me, I rejoice that I am not a Republican. – H.L. Mencken
The capacity of human beings to bore one another seems to be vastly greater than that of any other animal. – H.L. Mencken
Whatever its origin, a belief in spirits seems to have been common to all the nations of the ancient world who have left us any record of themselves. Ghosts began to walk early, and are walking still, in spite of the shrill cock-crow of wir haben ja aufgeklärt. – James Russell Lowell, “Witchcraft”