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
One seldom discovers a true believer that is worth knowing
As long as you represent me as praising alcohol I shall not complain,
I drink exactly as much as I want, and one drink more.
It is more blessed to give than receive; for example, wedding presents.
There are men so philosophical that they can see humor in their own toothaches. But there has never lived a man so philosophical that he could see the toothache in his own humor.
The opera is to music what a bawdy house is to a cathedral.
Injustice is relatively easy to bear; what sting is justice.
Husbands never become good; they merely become proficient.
Archbishop - A Christian ecclesiastic of a rank superior to that attained by Christ.
To wage a war for a purely moral reason is as absurd as to ravish a woman for a purely moral reason
Progress: The process whereby the human race has got rid of whiskers, the vermiform appendix, and God.
What is the function that a clergyman performs in the world? Answer: He gets his living by assuring idiots that he can save them from an imaginary hell.
Whenever I write anything that sets up controversy its meaning is distorted almost instantly. Even the editorial writers of newspapers seem to be unable to understand the plainest sentence.
The only way for a reporter to look at a politician is down.