A Quote by H. L. Mencken
The most common of all follies is to believe in the palpably untrue.
Related Quotes
The most costly of all follies is to believe passionately in the palpably not true. It is the chief occupation of mankind.
Most painters have painted themselves. So have most poets: not so palpably indeed, but more assiduously. Some have done nothing else.
We cannot bring ourselves to believe it possible that a foreigner should in any respect be wiser than ourselves. If any such point out to us our follies, we at once claim those follies as the special evidence of our wisdom.
Of all forms of visible otherworldliness, it seems to me, the Gothic is at once the most logical and the most beautiful. It reaches up magnificently-and a good half of it is palpably useless.
We are all American. If we believe that we are Americans, if we believe that what binds us together is what we have in common, then it must include the common language, and that common tongue is English.
I believe no satirist could breathe this air. If another Juvenal or Swift could rise up among us tomorrow, he would be hunted down. If you have any knowledge of our literature, and can give me the name of any man, American born and bred, who has anatomised our follies as a people, and not as this or that party; and who has escaped the foulest and most brutal slander, the most inveterate hatred and intolerant pursuit; it will be a strange name in my ears, believe me.
We can't believe what we believe to be untrue, and we can't love what we believe to be unreal.
In common discourse we denominate persons and things according to the major part of their character; he is to be called a wise man who has but few follies.
England, a happy land we know,
Where follies naturally grow,
Where without culture they arise,
And tow'r above the common size.
It is indeed a million times better to appear untrue before the world than to be untrue to ourselves.
Lying is common in social life, often done for benign purposes, seldom draws severe sanctions, and many of the most notable leaders, including the late Steve Jobs, were consummate prevaricators. Told with enough persistence and conviction, what was once untrue can become true, in a self-fulfilling prophecy sort of way.
Women cannot receive even the most palpably judicious suggestion without arguing it; that is, married women.
Hillary Clinton spent hundreds of millions of dollars on negative ads on me, many of which are absolutely untrue. They're untrue. And they're misrepresentations.
The wise man has his follies, no less than the fool; but it has been said that herein lies the difference--the follies of the fool are known to the world, but hidden from himself; the follies of the wise are known to himself, but hidden from the world.
The fear of vomiting, which for me is one of the most original and most acute of my fears, is actually fairly common. Emetophobia, it's called, and by some estimates, it's the fifth most common specific phobia.
When I say something untrue on the air, I mean for it to be transparently untrue. I assume people know when I'm just saying something for effect. Or to be funny.
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