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
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.
The wholly manly man lacks the wit necessary to give objective form to his soaring and secret dreams, and the wholly womanly woman is apt to be too cynical a creature to dream at all.
Free speech is too dangerous to a democracy to be permitted
I detest converts almost as much as I do missionaries.
It is more blessed to give than receive; for example, wedding presents.
Unquestionably, there is progress. The average American now pays out twice as much in taxes as he formerly got in wages.
Democracy is only a dream: it should be put in the same category as Arcadia, Santa Claus, and Heaven.
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.
History deals mainly with captains and kings, gods and prophets, exploiters and despoilers, not with useful men.
The ideal state for a philosopher, indeed, is celibacy tempered by polygamy.
In Baltimore, soft crabs are always fried (or broiled) in the altogether, with maybe a small jock-strap of bacon added.