Henry Louis Mencken (1880–1956) was an American journalist, editor, literary critic, and historian of language. He became celebrated as an iconoclastic critic of American society and frequently condemned its Puritanism and hypocrisy.
Born in Baltimore, Maryland, Mencken became editor of the Baltimore Herald, and then joined the Sunpapers in 1906. He worked with the Smart Set 1908–23. With the drama critic George Jean Nathan, Mencken founded the American Mercury in 1924, which Mencken edited until 1933.
Mencken became a significant influence on the American literary scene of the 1920s and supported many writers such as Theodore Dreiser and Sherwood Anderson. Mencken’s primary work is The American Language (1919, revised 1921, 1923, 1936; supplementary volumes, 1945, 1948,) wherein he opposed the dominance of European culture in America. This momentous attempt to organize the vigor and versatility of colloquial American usage made Mencken the leading authority on the language of his country.
Mencken’s reviews of American social and cultural norms and miscellaneous essays filled six volumes appropriately titled Prejudices (1919–27.) His autobiographical trilogy, Happy Days (1940,) Newspaper Days (1941,) and Heathen Days (1943,) is devoted to his experiences in journalism.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by H. L. Mencken
The older I grow, the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom.
—H. L. Mencken
Topics: Wisdom, Age, Aging
Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.
—H. L. Mencken
Topics: Democracy
The truth that survives is simply the lie that is pleasantest to believe.
—H. L. Mencken
Topics: Lies, Deception/Lying
God is the immemorial refuge of the incompetent, the helpless, the miserable. They find not only sanctuary in His arms, but also a kind of superiority, soothing to their macerated egos: He will set them above their betters.
—H. L. Mencken
Topics: God
Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule – and both commonly succeed, are right
—H. L. Mencken
Topics: Democracy
The Liberals have many tails, and chase them all
—H. L. Mencken
Topics: Liberalism
On one issue at least, men and women agree; they both distrust women.
—H. L. Mencken
Topics: Agreement
The government consists of a gang of men exactly like you and me. They have, taking one with another, no special talent for the business of government; they have only a talent for getting and holding office
—H. L. Mencken
Topics: Government
There are some people who read too much: The bibliobibuli. I know some who are constantly drunk on books, as others are drunk on whiskey or religion. They wander through this most diverting and stimulating of worlds in a haze, seeing nothing and hearing nothing.
—H. L. Mencken
Topics: Books, Literature, Reading
Economic independence is the foundation of the only sort of freedom worth a damn
—H. L. Mencken
Topics: Independence
It is inaccurate to say that I hate everything. I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty, and common decency. This makes me forever ineligible for public office.
—H. L. Mencken
Topics: Common Sense
Man is a beautiful machine that works very badly.
—H. L. Mencken
Topics: Humankind, Humanity
The chief knowledge that a man gets from reading books is the knowledge that very few of them are worth reading.
—H. L. Mencken
Topics: Books, Reading, Literature
Whenever a husband and wife begin to discuss their marriage they are giving evidence at a coroner’s inquest.
—H. L. Mencken
Topics: Marriage
I believe that all government is evil, in that all government must necessarily make war on liberty, and that the democratic government is at least as bad as any of the other forms
—H. L. Mencken
Topics: Government
It is the dull man who is always sure, and the sure man who is always dull.
—H. L. Mencken
Topics: Certainty
I go on working for the same reason that a hen goes on laying eggs.
—H. L. Mencken
Topics: Work
A society made up of individuals who were all capable of original thought would probably be unendurable.
—H. L. Mencken
Topics: Originality, Innovation
We must be willing to pay a price for freedom.
—H. L. Mencken
Topics: Freedom
Whenever you hear a man speak of his love for his country, it is a sign that he expects to be paid for it.
—H. L. Mencken
Topics: Patriotism
Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence.
—H. L. Mencken
Topics: Love
I believe in only one thing: liberty; but I do not believe in liberty enough to want to force it upon anyone.
—H. L. Mencken
Topics: Liberty
The legislature, like the executive, has ceased to be even the creature of the people: it is the creature of pressure groups, and most of them, it must be manifest, are of dubious wisdom and even more dubious honesty. Laws are no longer made by a rational process of public discussion; they are made by a process of blackmail and intimidation, and they are executed in the same manner. The typical lawmaker of today is a man wholly devoid of principle
—H. L. Mencken
Topics: Government
The thing which sets off the American from all other men, and gives peculiar color not only to the pattern of his daily life but also adds to the play of his inner ideas, is what, for want of a more exact term, may be called social aspiration
—H. L. Mencken
Topics: Aspirations
A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin.
—H. L. Mencken
Topics: Cynicism
In this world of sin and sorrow there is always something to be thankful for; as for me, I rejoice that I am not a Republican.
—H. L. Mencken
Topics: Gratitude
Democracy is also a form of religion. It is the worship of jackals by jackasses.
—H. L. Mencken
Topics: Democracy
A church is a place in which gentlemen who have never been to heaven brag about it to persons who will never get there.
—H. L. Mencken
Topics: Religion, Churches
There is no record in history of a happy philosopher.
—H. L. Mencken
Topics: Philosophy, Science
As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their hearts desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron
—H. L. Mencken
Topics: Government
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