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
[Referring to FDR] If he became convinced tomorrow that coming out for cannibalism would get him the votes he needs so sorely, he would begin fattening a missionary in the White House yard come Wednesday.
The opera is to music what a bawdy house is to a cathedral.
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 New Deal began, like the Salvation Army, by promising to save humanity. It ended, again like the Salvation Army, by running flop-houses and disturbing the peace.
We suffer most when the White House busts with ideas.
For me to go into politics would be like sending a virgin into a house of ill-repute.
Communism, like any other revealed religion, is largely made up of prophecies.
Human progress is furthered, not by conformity, but by aberration.
To be in love is merely to be in a perpetual state of anesthesia - to mistake an ordinary young man for a Greek god or an ordinary young woman for a goddess
Nevertheless, it is even harder for the average ape to believe that he has descended from man.
Injustice is relatively easy to bear; what stings is justice.
Judge: a law student who marks his own examination-papers.
God is a comedian, playing to an audience too afraid to laugh.
It is hard for the ape to believe he descended from man.