H. L. Mencken Quotes

Original sin is that thing about man which makes him capable of conceiving of his own perfection and incapable of achieving it.

The problem with people is that they're only human.

Man is a beautiful machine that works very badly.

All human beings are commingled out of good and evil.

They talk like angels but they live like men.

From such crooked wood as that which man is made of, nothing straight can be fashioned.

Filmmakers tell stories to explore human nature, which is always a flawed thing.

If you asked me what is the basis of all my work, it's the feeling there's something basically wrong with human beings.

I like people that are real people. Real people are broad; they make mistakes.

There are things you have to look at with those world-class players, but at the end of the day, they're not superheroes. They're still human.

Unfortunately I am a human being and not a robot.

I'm happy to be human, and being human means we aren't perfect.

All of us are imperfect human beings living in an imperfect world.

Nobody's perfect. We're all just one step up from the beasts and one step down from the angels.

Perfection is only an ideal for man; it cannot be attained, for man is made imperfect.

There ain't anything worth doing a man can do and keep his dignity. Can you figure out a single thing you really please-God like to do you can do and keep your dignity? The human frame just ain't built that way.

We all are men, in our own natures frail, and capable of our flesh; few are angels.

It is the rooted instinct in men to admire what is better and more beautiful than themselves.

That is very fine; but it is impossible to make the men perfect; the men will always remain the same as they are now; and no legislation will make a man have more presence of mind, or, I believe, make him more cautious; and besides that, the next time such an accident occurs, the circumstances will be so different, that the instructions given to the men, in consequence of the former accident, will not apply.

Only in thought is man a God; in action and desire we are the slaves of circumstance.

Men are but men; we did not make ourselves.

why human beings despise what is beautiful and good, and seek to destroy the things they need the most

There is no man so great as not to have some littleness more predominant than all his greatness. Our virtues are the dupes, and often only the plaything of our follies.

Remember that I too am mortal.

Everybody's weird, fundamentally everybody is a snap. Sometimes it's a sexual thing and sometimes it's a different kind of weirdness, but one way or another everybody's nuts.