A Quote by H. L. Mencken

The great difficulty about keeping the Ten Commandments is that no man can keep them and be a gentleman.

H. L. Mencken

Quote Topics

About Commandments Difficulty Gentleman Great Keep Keeping Man Ten Ten Commandments Them

Quote Author

H. L. Mencken
American - Writer
September 12, 1880 - January 29, 1956

You know, it's ironic to me that Christians want to keep the Ten Commandments in our schools, because Christianity has abrogated four of the Ten Commandments. For example, the Sabbath day according to the Ten Commandments is Saturday, not Sunday. And the reason is because God rested, not because Jesus was resurrected.

Alan Dershowitz

Have faith to keep all the commandments of God, knowing that they are given to bless His children and bring them joy. [You] will encounter people who pick which commandments they will keep and ignore others that they choose to break. I call this the cafeteria approach to obedience. This practice of picking and choosing will not work. It will lead to misery. To prepare to meet God, one keeps all of His commandments. It takes faith to obey them, and keeping His commandments will strengthen that faith.

Russell M. Nelson

A man may be a great statesman, and yet dislike his wife, and like somebody else's. A man may be a great hero, and yet he may have an unseemly passion, or an unpaid tailor. But the British public does not understand this. ... It thinks, unhappily or happily as you may choose to consider, that genius should keep the whole ten commandments. Now, genius is conspicuous for breaking them.

Ouida

Say what you will about the ten commandments, you must always come back to the pleasant fact that there are only ten of them.

H. L. Mencken

A belief in God is vitally important, not just in show business, but stability in life. You know, to recognize deity is the most important thing that you can do. I mean, it comes to the Ten Commandments. They weren't ten suggestions. They were Ten Commandments.

Donny Osmond

Do you advocate the Ten Commandments as a guide to the good life? Then I can only presume that you don't know the Ten Commandments.

Richard Dawkins

God hears and fulfills the prayer of a man who fulfills His commandments. "Hear God in His commandments," says St. John Chrysostom, "So that He might hear you in your prayers." A man who keeps the commandments of God is always wise, patient, and sincere in his prayers. Mystery of prayer consists in the keeping of God's commandments.

Justin Popovic

I've traveled all over the country for years speaking in churches, teaching the Ten Commandments. It's amazing if 2 percent of any congregation knows the Ten Commandments.

Randall Terry

We don't put the Ten Commandments in school anymore. We just neglect everything and people act like the Ten Commandments is something so terrible. I mean, it's a way to live. I think we all could agree on what they say.

Morgan Wallen

The most important of all the commandments of God is that one that you are having the most difficulty keeping today.

Harold B. Lee

If men will not be governed by the Ten Commandments, they shall be governed by the ten thousand commandments

Gilbert K. Chesterton

If then, Moses so distinctly announces that there is in us not only a faculty, but also a facility for keeping all commandments, why are we sweating so much? ... What need is there now of Christ or of Spirit? We have found a passage that asserts freedom of choice, but also distinctly teaches that the keeping of the commandments is easy.

Martin Luther

No man can break any of the Ten Commandments. He can only break himself against them.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

There are ten commandments, right? Well, it's like an exam. You get eight out of ten, you're just about top of the class.

Mordecai Richler

Man has made 32 million laws since THE COMMANDMENTS were handed down to Moses on Mount Sinai more than three thousand years ago, but he has never improved on God's law. THE TEN COMMANDMENTS are the principles by which man may live with God and man may live with man. They are the expressions of the mind of God for His creatures. They are the charter and guide of human liberty, for there can be no liberty without the law.