H. L. Mencken Drinking Quotations

We are here and it is now. Further than that, all human knowledge is moonshine.

A prohibitionist is the sort of man one couldn't care to drink with, even if he drank.

The harsh, useful things of the world, from pulling teeth to digging potatoes, are best done by men who are as starkly sober as so many convicts in the death-house, but the lovely and useless things, the charming and exhilarating things, are best done by men with, as the phrase is, a few sheets in the wind.

The martini: the only American invention as perfect as the sonnet.

How to Drink Like a Gentleman: The Things to Do and the Things Not To, as Learned in 30 Years' Extensive Research.

Two simple principles lie at the bottom of the whole matter, and they may be precipitated into two rules. The first is that, when there is a choice, the milder drink is always the better-not merely the safer but the better. The second is that no really enlightened drinker ever takes a drink at a time when he has any work to do. There is, of course, more to it than this; but these are sufficient for the beginner, and even the virtuoso never outgrows them.

There are two impossibilities in life: "just one drink" and "an honest politician."

It is not the drinker, but the man who has just stopped drinking, who thinks the world is going to the dogs.