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Inspirational Quotations

by RightAttitudes.com

Inspirational Quotations by H. L. Mencken (American Journalist, Literary Critic)

Inspirational Quotations by H. L. Mencken (American Journalist, Literary Critic)

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. From 1908 to 1923, he worked with the Smart Set, and in 1924 he and the Drama Critic George Jean Nathan founded the American Mercury, which Mencken edited until 1933.

Mencken became a major influence on the American literary scene of the 1920s and supported many writers such as Theodore Dreiser and Sherwood Anderson. Mencken’s main 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 (via CC-BY-SA license) • READ: Works by H. L. Mencken

Every man sees in his relatives, and especially in his cousins, a series of grotesque caricatures of himself.
—H. L. Mencken
Topics: Family

Before a man speaks, it is always safe to assume that he is a fool. After he speaks it is seldom necessary to assume.
—H. L. Mencken

It is only doubt that creates. It is the minority that counts.
—H. L. Mencken

Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable.
—H. L. Mencken
Topics: Faith, Belief

The average man never really thinks from end to end of his life. The mental activity of such people is only a mouthing of cliches.
—H. L. Mencken
Topics: Thinking

Confidence: The feeling that makes one believe a man, even when one knows that one would lie in his place.
—H. L. Mencken
Topics: Confidence

Let’s not burn the universities yet. After all, the damage they do might be worse.
—H. L. Mencken
Topics: Education, Universities

Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin to slit throats.
—H. L. Mencken

The only liberty an inferior man really cherishes is the liberty to quit work, stretch out in the sun, and scratch himself.
—H. L. Mencken
Topics: Work, Stress

There is nothing worse than an idle hour, with no occupation offering. People who have many such hours are simply animals waiting docilely for death. We all come to that state soon or late. It is the curse of senility.
—H. L. Mencken
Topics: Idleness

Writing books is certainly a most unpleasant occupation. It is lonesome, unsanitary, and maddening. Many authors go crazy.
—H. L. Mencken
Topics: Occupation

A great literature is chiefly the product of inquiring minds in revolt against the immovable certainties of the nation.
—H. L. Mencken
Topics: Literature

The chief value of money lies in the fact that one lives in a world in which it is overestimated.
—H. L. Mencken
Topics: Money

We must respect the other fellow’s religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart.
—H. L. Mencken
Topics: Religion

Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence.
—H. L. Mencken
Topics: Love

Man is always looking for someone to boast to; woman is always looking for a shoulder to put her head on.
—H. L. Mencken
Topics: Men, Men & Women, Women, Nature

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