H. L. Mencken Quotes

I see a man's life is a tedious one.

My life is so boring that your brains are going to melt and come out of your eyes.

I searched all areas of knowledge, and not only did I fail to find anything, but I was convinced that all those who had explored as I did had also come up with nothing. Not only had they found nothing, but they had clearly acknowledged the same thing that had brought me to despair: the only absolute knowledge attainable by man is that life is meaningless.

Only now do I understand the war against boredom, the lost cause of empty hours, of empty days and nights.

We're all making castles in the sand, wonderful tapestries, an exquisite corpse. But is it meaningful? No. It's dogs barking. It doesn't mean anything beyond our yelping, at the pain of being alive.

Life is as tedious as twice-told tale, vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man.

Since all life is futility, then the decision to exist must be the most irrational of all.

If we were not all so interested in ourselves, life would be so uninteresting that none of us would be able to endure it.

How does one get bored of life?

At any street corner the feeling of absurdity can strike any man in the face.

Any art worthy of its name should address 'life', 'man', 'nature', 'death' and 'tragedy'.

Regarding life, the wisest men of all ages have judged alike: it is worthless.

For boredom speaks the language of time, and it is to teach you the most valuable lesson of your life - the lesson of your utter insignificance.

The more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it also seems pointless.

Life is tragic and absurd, and none of it has any purpose at all.

My search not only failed, but I convinced myself that all those who had searched like myself had failed also, and come like me to the despairing conviction that the only absolute knowledge man can possess is this—that life is without a meaning.

We start off with high hopes, then we bottle it. We realise that we’re all going to die, without really finding out the big answers. We develop all those long-winded ideas which just interpret the reality of our lives in different ways, without really extending our body of worthwhile knowledge, about the big things, the real things. Basically, we live a short disappointing life; and then we die. We fill up our lives with shite, things like careers and relationships to delude ourselves that it isn’t all totally pointless.

it seems a silly kind o' business to bring us into the world at all for no special reason 'cept to take us out of it again just as folks 'ave learned to know us a bit and find us useful.

The war between being and nothingness is the underlying illness of the twentieth century. Boredom slays more of existence than war.

There is not much difference between a mortal man and a dying man. The absurdity of making plans is only slightly more obvious in the second case.

L'homme est une passion inutile. Man is a useless passion.

By all evidence we are in the world to do nothing; but instead of nonchalantly promenading our own corruption, we exude our sweat and grow winded upon the fetid air.

Boredom slays more of existence than war.

And I am bored to death with it. Bored to death with this place, bored to death with my life, bored to death with myself.

Sometimes the world seems like a big hole. You spend all your life shouting down it and all you hear are echoes of some idiot yelling nonsense down a hole.