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A great literature is thus chiefly the product of doubting and inquiring minds in revolt against the immovable certainties of the nation.

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
Nations
Revolt
Great
Certainty
Mind
Product
Thus
Immovable
Minds
Certainties
Products
Inquiring
Nation
Doubting
Literature
Chiefly

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The other day a dog peed on me. A bad sign.
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I never lecture, not because I am shy or a bad speaker, but simply because I detest the sort of people who go to lectures and don't want to meet them.
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As if paralyzed by the national fear of ideas, the democratic distrust of whatever strikes beneath the prevailing platitudes, it evades all resolute and honest dealing with what, after all, must be every healthy literature's elementary materials.
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It is surely no mere coincidence that the land of the emancipated and enthroned woman is also the land of canned soup, of canned pork and beans, of whole meals in cans, and of everything else ready made.
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It is a peculiarity of the American mind that it regards any excursion into the truth as an adventure into cynicism.
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I write in order to attain that feeling of tension relieved and function achieved which a cow enjoys on giving milk.
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There are men so philosophical that they can see humor in their own toothaches. But there has never lived a man so philosophical that he could see the toothache in his own humor.
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The cure for the evils of democracy is more democracy.
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The Christian always swears a bloody oath that he will never do it again. The civilized man simply resolves to be a bit more careful next time.
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The sort of man who likes to spend his time watching a cage of monkeys chase one another, or a lion gnaw its tail, or a lizard catch flies, is precisely the sort of man whose mental weakness should be combated at the public expense, not fostered.
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The first Rotarian was the first man to call John the Baptist Jack.
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What we need in this country is a general improvement in eating. We have the best raw materials in the world, both quantitatively and qualitatively, but most of them are ruined in the process of preparing them for the table.
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It is not a sign of communal well-being when men turn to their government to execute all their business for them, but rather a sign of decay, as in the United States today. The state, indeed, is but one of the devices that a really healthy community sets up to manage its affairs.
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The cynics are right nine times out of ten.
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The great difficulty about keeping the Ten Commandments is that no man can keep them and be a gentleman.
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I hate sports the way people who like sports hate common sense.
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