H. L. Mencken Quotes

A church is a place in which gentlemen who have never been to heaven brag about it to persons who will never get there.

Volumes might be written upon the impiety of the pious.

Public displays of puritanical religiosity mask the private perversions of the real Washington behind closed doors.

Some men will not shave on Sunday, and yet they spend all the week in shaving their fellow-men; and many folks think it very wicked to black their boots on Sunday morning, yet they do not hesitate to black their neighbor's reputation on week-days.

Thus one can observe that those who proclaim piety as their goal and purpose usually turn into hypocrites.

Do not, as some ungracious pastors do, Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven; Whilst, like a puff'd and reckless libertine, Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads And recks not his own read.

Some of the craftiest scoundrels that ever walked this earth . . . will gravely jot down in diaries the events of every day, and keep a regular debtor and creditor account with heaven, which shall always show a floating balance in their own favour.

I admire the serene assurance of those who have religious faith. It is wonderful to observe the calm confidence of a Christian with four aces.

Prayer has never made you right, because right now our world of Islam is filled with abject hypocrisy in its religiosity.

Great Hypocrites are the real atheists.

Really, there is no infidelity, nowadays, so great as that which prays, and keeps the Sabbath, and rebuilds the churches. The sealer of the South Pacific preaches a truer doctrine.

Periodical godliness is perpetual hypocrisy.

Since the primary motive of the evil is disguise, one of the places evil people are most likely to be found is within the church. What better way to conceal one's evil from oneself as well as from others than to be a deacon or some other highly visible form of Christian within our culture

Piety's hard enough to take among the poor who have to practice it. A rich man's piety stinks. It's insufferable.

There is a Sunday conscience as well as a Sunday coat; and those who make religion a secondary concern put the coat and conscience carefully by to put on only once a week.

Some make Conscience of wearing a Hat in the Church, who make none of robbing the Altar.

For man may pious texts repeat, And yet religion have no inward seat

It is a terribly easy matter to be a minister of the gospel and a vile hypocrite at the same time.

They are hypocrites, they think the Church is a cage to keep God in, so he will stay locked up there and not go wandering about the earth during the week, poking his nose into their business, and looking in the depths and darkness and doubleness of their hearts, and their lack of true charity; and they believed they need only be bothered about him on Sundays when they have their best clothes on and their faces straight, and their hands washed and their gloves on, and their stories all prepared.

It is not best to use our morals weekdays, it gets them out of repair for Sunday.

Beware of the guy praying loudest in the amen corner.

There are things about organized religion which I resent. Christ is revered as the Prince of Peace, but more blood has been shed in his name than any other figure in history. You show me one step forward in the name of religion, and I'll show you a hundred retrogressions…I'm for decency—period. I'm for anything and everything that bodes love and consideration for my fellow man. But when lip service to some mysterious deity permits bestiality on Wednesday and absolution on Sunday—count me out.

No profit to honour, no honour to Religion.

Immorality, perversion, infidelity, cannibalism, etc., are unassailable by church and civic league if you dress them up in the togas and talliths of the Good Book.

A saint in crape is twice a saint in lawn.