H. L. Mencken Quotes

Human beings need to watch out for reasonless niceness too. It's never reasonless and its reason's not usually nice.

They that examine into the Nature of Man, abstract from Art and Education, may observe, that what renders him a Sociable Animal, consists not in his desire of Company, Good-nature, Pity, Affability, and other Graces of a fair Outside; but that his vilest and most hateful Qualities are the most necessary Accomplishments to fit him for the largest, and, according to the World, the happiest and most flourishing Societies.

It is a feature of human nature to give what we most wish to receive.

People aren't universally heroic.

Most of us are consumed with our own thoughts and desires and are not always thinking about what other people may want. This is not necessarily being egocentric; it is just being human.

Toxic people defy logic. Some are blissfully unaware of the negative impact that they have on those around them, and others seem to derive satisfaction from creating chaos and pushing other people's buttons.

You come to know the aches and vanities and tastes and intrigues of an entire neighborhood at a drug store.

I love observing people.

I love people, I love studying people more than history. So whatever situation I see, then I look at, what were the people like, more than history itself.

I've always been someone who really watches other people, human behavior. To watch it and be able to express it through your version has always been really exciting to me.

We would not be here if humanity were inherently evil. We'd have eaten ourselves alive long ago.

Men are awesome, but they're pretty easy to figure out; women are way more complicated, and way more interesting.

Humankind would improve if we concentrated less on being human and more on being kind.

To the extent that we have a better understanding of the brain, we will have a richer appreciation of ourselves, of our fellow men and of society and, in fact, of the whole world and its problems.

As soon as someone finds out something you're insecure about or that bothers you, they will use that against you, which is awful.

How profoundly human nature and indeed human relations affect the outcome of events.

We must take man as we find him, and if we expect him to serve the public we must interest his passions in doing so.

It is absurd to suppose, if this is God’s world, that men must always be selfish barbarians.

People are nicer than economists give us credit for. The economists cannot understand why people would work long and hard to clean up a community after a hurricane. … Most economists don’t have any interest in or understanding of psychology.

The whole history of the world has been the struggle between the selfish and the unselfish.

I'm interested in character and people and motivations and things like that.

Certainly, hunger can bring out the worst in us. But it can also bring out the best.

People love drama. They feed off of it.

I'm someone who likes to explore the complexities in people.

I think every human being has good intentions in one aspect of life and some in every.