"No man of honor ever quite lives..." - Quote by H L Mencken
No man of honor ever quite lives up to his code, any more than a moral man manages to avoid sin.
More by H L Mencken
“The capacity of human beings to bore one another seems to be vastly greater than that of any other animal.”
“The whole drift of our law is toward the absolute prohibition of all ideas that diverge in the slightest form from the accepted platitudes, and behind that drift of law there is a far more potent force of growing custom, and under that custom there is a natural philosophy which erects conformity into the noblest of virtues and the free functioning of personality into a capital crime against society.”
“All of the great patriots now engaged in edging and squirming their way toward the Presidency of the Republic run true to form. That is to say, they are all extremely wary, and all more or less palpable frauds. What they want, primarily, is the job; the necessary equipment of unescapable issues, immutable principles and soaring ideals can wait until it becomes more certain which way the mob will be whooping.”
More on Morality
More on Honor
“There are people who observe the rules of honor as one observes the stars, from a great distance.”
“No child should be brought up to suppose that its food and clothes come down from heaven or are miraculously conjured from empty space by papa. Loathsome as we have made the idea of duty (like the idea of work) we must habituate children to a sense of repayable obligation to the community for what they consume and enjoy, and inculcate the repayment as a point of honor.”
“Thanks to menOf noble minds, is honorable meed.”