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American journalism (like the journalism of any other country) is predominantly paltry and worthless. Its pretensions are enormous, but its achievements are insignificant.

H. L. Mencken

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H. L. Mencken
Age: 75 †
Born: 1880
Born: September 12
Died: 1956
Died: January 29
Autobiographer
Essayist
Historian
Journalist
Linguist
Literary Critic
Satirist
Social Critic
Writer
Baltimore
Maryland
Henry Louis Mencken
Insignificant
Worthless
Journalism
Enormous
Paltry
Achievement
Pretensions
American
Predominantly
Country
Pretension
Like
Achievements

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Philadelphia is the most pecksniffian of American cities, and thus probably leads the world.
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Liberty and democracy are eternal enemies, and every one knows it who has ever given any sober reflection to the matter.
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The instant I reach Heaven, I'm going to speak to God very sharply.
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The common notion that free speech prevails in the United States always makes me laugh.
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Man is always looking for someone to boast to woman is always looking for a shoulder to put her head on.
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A man who knows a subject thoroughly, a man so soaked in it that he eats it, sleeps it and dreams it- this man can always teach it with success, no matter how little he knows of technical pedagogy.
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No matter how happily a woman may be married, it always pleases her to discover that there is a nice man who wishes that she were not.
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I can't imagine a genuinely intelligent boy getting much out of college, even out of a good college, save it be a cynical habit of mind.
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The difference between a moral man and a man of honor is that the latter regrets a discreditable act, even when it has worked and he has not been caught.
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I believe that any man who takes the liberty of another into his keeping is bound to become a tyrant, and that any man who yields up his liberty, in however slight the measure, is bound to become a slave.
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I am against slavery simply because I dislike slaves.
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I give you Chicago. It is not London and Harvard. It is not Paris and buttermilk. It is American in every chitling and sparerib. It is alive from snout to tail.
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A great nation is any mob of people which produces at least one honest man a century.
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The one permanent emotion of the inferior man is fear - fear of the unknown, the complex, the inexplicable. What he wants above everything else is safety.
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Immorality: the morality of those who are having a better time.
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In the United States, doing good has come to be, like patriotism, a favorite device of persons with something to sell.
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At the end of one millennium and nine centuries of Christianity, it remains an unshakable assumption of the law in all Christian countries and of the moral judgement of Christians everywhere that if a man and a woman, entering a room together, close the door behind them, the man will come out sadder and the woman wiser.
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The saddest life is that of a political aspirant under democracy. His failure is ignominious and his success is disgraceful.
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The cynics are right nine times out of ten.
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