H. L. Mencken
H. L. Mencken
Henry Louis Menckenwas a German-American journalist, satirist, cultural critic and scholar of American English. Known as the "Sage of Baltimore", he is regarded as one of the most influential American writers and prose stylists of the first half of the twentieth century. As a scholar Mencken is known for The American Language, a multi-volume study of how the English language is spoken in the United States. His satirical reporting on the Scopes trial, which he dubbed the "Monkey Trial", also...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionWriter
Date of Birth12 September 1880
CountryUnited States of America
Democracy must be a sound scheme at bottom, else it would not survive such cruel strains.
The learned are seldom pretty fellows, and in many cases their appearance tends to discourage a love of study in the young.
No reporter of my generation, whatever his genius, ever really rated spats and a walking stick until he had covered both a lynching and a revolution.
If all the lawyers were hanged tomorrow, and their bones were sold to a mah jong factory, we'd all be freer and safer, and our taxes would be reduced by almost a half.
There are two impossibilities in life: "just one drink" and "an honest politician."
How to Drink Like a Gentleman: The Things to Do and the Things Not To, as Learned in 30 Years' Extensive Research.
Time is a great legalizer, even in the field of morals
The fact that I have no remedy for all the sorrows of the world is no reason for my accepting yours. It simply supports the strong probability that yours is a fake.
Evil: That which one believes of others. It is a sin to believe evil of others, but it is seldom a mistake
The most satisfying and ecstatic faith is almost purely agnostic. It trusts absolutely without professing to know at all.
Free speech is too dangerous to a democracy to be permitted
I detest converts almost as much as I do missionaries.
A national political campaign is better than the best circus ever heard of, with a mass baptism and a couple of hangings thrown in.
The pedant and the priest have always been the most expert of logicians -- and the most diligent disseminators of nonsense and worse.