H. L. Mencken

Each party steals so many articles of faith from the other, and the candidates spend so much time making each other's speeches, that by the time election day is past there is nothing much to do save turn the sitting rascals out and let a new gang in.

Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable.

It is impossible to imagine the universe run by a wise, just and omnipotent God, but it is quite easy to imagine it run by a board of gods.

God is a comedian, playing to an audience too afraid to laugh.

Love is the delusion that one woman differs from another.

Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence.

Love is like war: easy to begin but very hard to stop.

One of the most mawkish of human delusions is the notion that friendship should be eternal, or, at all events, life-long, and that any act which puts a term to it is somehow discreditable.

The basic fact about human existence is not that it is a tragedy, but that it is a bore. It is not so much a war as an endless standing in line.

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