Whenever I write anything that sets up controversy its meaning is distorted almost instantly. Even the editorial writers of newspapers seem to… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
The function of a newspaper in a democracy is to stand as a sort of chronic opposition to the reigning quacks. The… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
All successful newspapers are ceaselessly querulous and bellicose. They never defend anyone or anything if they can help it; if the job… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
To the best of my knowledge and belief, the average American newspaper, even of the so-called better sort, is not only quite… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
A newspaper is a device for making the ignorant more ignorant and the crazy crazier. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
To the best of my knowledge and belief, the average American newspaper, even of the so-called better sort, is not only quite… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
All successful newpapers are ceaselessly querulous and bellicose. They never defend anyone or anything if they can help it; if the job… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
A bad artist almost always tries to conceal his incompetence by whooping up a new formula. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
By profession a biologist, [Thomas Henry Huxley] covered in fact the whole field of the exact sciences, and then bulged through its four fences.… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
So few men are really worth knowing, that it seems a shameful waste to let an anthropoid prejudice stand in the way of free… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
Man's objection to love is that it dies hard; woman's, that when it is dead, it stays dead. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
For it is an absurdity to call a country civilized in which a decent and industrious man, laboriously mastering a trade which is valuble… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
Women have simple tastes. They get pleasure out of the conversation of children in arms and men in love. — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
The critic, to interpret his artist, even to understand his artist, must be able to get into the mind of his artist; he must… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
There is, in fact, nothing about religious opinions that entitles them to any more respect than other opinions get. On the contrary, they tend… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
Liberty ... was a two-headed boon. There was first, the liberty of the people as a whole to determine the forms of their own… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image