Quote of the Day: H. L. Mencken on War & Peace

We swipe, match, and message at the speed of a notification; we quit jobs on Zoom; we let AI draft apologies before the coffee cools. Modern life trains us to believe everything is reversible, one click to start, one click to undo. Yet the oldest human forces don’t obey our “unsubscribe” fantasies, which is why H. L. Mencken’s line still lands like a truth we didn’t want: “Love is like war: easy to begin but very hard to stop.”

Mencken isn’t romanticizing drama; he’s diagnosing momentum. Love can ignite from something microscopic, a glance across a bar, a shared joke in a group chat, and suddenly you’re reorganizing weekends, priorities, and identity around another person. Like conflicts, relationships rarely begin with a full accounting of consequences. The entry cost feels low. The price arrives later, in installments.

What makes love “hard to stop” isn’t just heartbreak; it’s infrastructure. Two lives braid together: habits, mutual friends, family expectations, future plans. Even when affection curdles into resentment, attachment lingers, memory, longing, the stubborn need to be understood. And like war, the aftermath can outlast the official ending. We stop dating, yet continue fighting the same arguments in our heads. We declare peace, but carry shrapnel.

H. L. Mencken built his legacy as America’s sharp-tongued critic, a writer who distrusted easy sentiment and preferred uncomfortable accuracy. His wit wasn’t cruelty for sport; it was a tool for seeing human behavior without the usual filters.

If April encourages renewal, this Monday is a good day to begin more carefully, and to end more cleanly. Before you “start” anything that looks like love, ask what it will take to stop with dignity. And when you feel the urge to escalate, remember: the most courageous form of resilience may be refusing the first easy step into a battle you’ll spend years trying to leave.