On Obedience

“Morality is doing what is right, no matter what you are told. Religion is doing what you are told, no matter what is right.”

– Henry Louis Mencken

Cilice‏

A cilice‏ (pronounced ‘silees’) is a garment of rough cloth made from goats’ hair and worn in the form of a shirt or as a girdle around the loins, by way of mortification and penance.

The Latin name is said to be derived from the word Cilicia, where this cloth was made, but the thing itself was probably known and used long before this name was given to it. The sackcloth, for instance, is often mentioned in the Bible as a symbol of mourning and penance.

“A Sunday school is a prison in which children do penance for the evil conscience of their parents.” – H. L. Mencken

On Ancestors

“It is even harder for the average ape to believe that he has descended from man.”

– Henry Louis Mencken

Life Without Sex

“Life without sex might be safer but it would be unbearably dull. It is the sex instinct which makes women seem beautiful, which they are once in a blue moon, and men seem wise and brave, which they never are at all. Throttle it, denaturalize it, take it away, and human existence would be reduced to the prosaic, laborious, boresome, imbecile level of life in an anthill.”

– Henry Louis Mencken

A Great Americanism

“The term rubberneck is almost a complete treatise on American psychology. – One of the best words ever coined.”

– Henry Louis Mencken

On Puritanism [Noun.]

“The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.”

– Henry Louis Mencken