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
To denounce moralizing out of hand is to pronounce a moral judgment.
I am one of the few goyim who have ever actually tackled the Talmud. I suppose you now expect me to add that it is a profound and noble work, worthy of hard study by all other goyims. Unhappily, my report must differ from this expectation. It seems to me, save for a few bright spots, to be quite indistinguishable from rubbish.
The way for newspapers to meet the competition of radio and television is simply to get out better papers.
The artist is not a reporter, but a Great Teacher. It is not his business to depict the world as it is, but as it ought to be.
The capacity of human beings to bore one another seems to be vastly greater than that of any other animal. Some of their most esteemed inventions have no other apparent purpose - for example, the dinner party of more than two, the epic poem, and the science of metaphysics.
The common man knows exactly what he wants...and deserves to get it good and hard.
[Art is] an attempt to escape from life.
Haste is of the devil. Slowness is of God.
The liberation of the human mind has never been furthered by dunderheads
The more I think you over, the more it comes home to me what an unmitigated Middle Victorian ass you are!
The net effect of Clarence Darrow's great speech yesterday seemed to be precisely the same as if he had bawled it up a rainspout in the interior of Afghanistan.
Suppose two-thirds of the members of the national House of Representatives were dumped into the Washington garbage incinerator tomorrow, what would we lose to offset our gain of their salaries and the salaries of their parasites?
The only way that a government can provide for jobs for all citizens is by deciding what every man should do.
Marriage is a wonderful institution, but...