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To the man with an ear for verbal delicacies- the man who searches painfully for the perfect word, and puts the way of saying a thing above the thing said - there is in writing the constant joy of sudden discovery, of happy accident.

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
Word
Sudden
Happiness
Puts
Happy
Accidents
Delicacies
Perfect
Discovery
Searches
Writing
Ears
Painfully
Thing
Constant
Delicacy
Way
Joy
Verbal
Men
Saying
Accident

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The only way that a government can provide for jobs for all citizens is by deciding what every man should do.
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Never argue with a man whose job depends on not being convinced.
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Unsuccessful candidates for the Presidency should be quietly hanged as a matter of public sanitation and decorum.
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The objection to a Communist always resolves itself into the fact that he is not a gentleman.
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The first kiss is stolen by the man the last is begged by the woman.
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A sense of humor always withers in the presence of the messianic delusion, like justice and the truth in front of patriotic passion.
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A man is called a good fellow for doing things which, if done by a woman, would land her in a lunatic asylum.
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Watching two women kiss is like watching two prizefighters shake hands.
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A mood of constructive criticism being upon me, I propose forthwith that the method of choosing legislators now prevailing in the United States be abandoned and that the method used in choosing juries be substituted. That is to say, I propose that the men who make our laws be chosen by chance and against will of all the rest of us, as now.
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One of the most mawkish of human delusions is the notion that friendship should be eternal, or, at all events, life-long, and that any act which puts a term to it is somehow discreditable.
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The cure for the evils of democracy is more democracy.
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The physical business of writing is unpleasant to me, but the psychic satisfaction of discharging bad ideas in worse English makes me forget it.
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No matter how much a woman loved a man, it would still give her a glow to see him commit suicide for her.
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Man weeps to think that he will die so soon woman, that she was born so long ago.
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The basic fact about human existence is not that it is a tragedy, but that it is a bore. It is not so much a war as an endless standing in line.
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The common man knows exactly what he wants...and deserves to get it good and hard.
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No one hates his job so heartily as a farmer.
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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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Taxation, for example, is eternally lively it concerns nine-tenths of us more directly than either smallpox or golf, and has just as much drama in it moreover, it has been mellowed and made gay by as many gaudy, preposterous theories
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What is too often forgotten is that nature obviously intends the botched to die, and that every interference with that benign process is full of dangers.
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