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
I know of no American who starts from a higher level of aspiration than the journalist. . . . He plans to be both an artist and a moralist -- a master of lovely words and merchant of sound ideas. He ends, commonly, as the most depressing jackass of his community -- that is, if his career goes on to what is called a success.
The opera is to music what a bawdy house is to a cathedral.
Happiness is the china shop; love is the bull.
Who ever heard, indeed, of an autobiography that was not (interesting)? I can recall none in all the literature of the world
Wherever I sit is the head of the table.
A wealthy man is one who earns $100 a year more than his wife's sister's husband.
The music critic, Huneber, could never quite make up his mind about a new symphony until he had seen the composer's mistress.
There is, in fact, nothing about religious opinions that entitles them to any more respect than other opinions get. On the contrary, they tend to be noticeably silly.
The worst of marriage is that it makes a woman believe that all other men are just as easy to fool.
I am a strict monogamist: it is twenty years since I last went to bed with two women at once, and then I was in my cups and not myself.
No normal man ever fell in love after thirty when the kidneys begin to disintegrate.
Wife: one who is sorry she did it, but would undoubtedly do it again.
Save among politicians it is no longer necessary for any educated American to profess belief in Thirteenth Century ideas
Is it hot in the rolling mill? Are the hours long? Is $15 a day not enough? Then escape is easy. Simply throw up your job, spit on your hands, and write another "Rosenkavailer."