The Mencken Society
Promoting the living works of Henry Louis Mencken, the "Sage of Baltimore"
- A celebrity is one who is known to many persons he is glad he doesn’t know.
- Conscience is a mother-in-law whose visit never ends.
- Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.
- Every man is his own hell.
- Historian – An unsuccessful novelist.
- Misogynist – A man who hates women as much as women hate one another.
- Optimist – The sort of man who marries his sister’s best friend.
- Puritanism – The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.
- The kind of man who demands that government enforce his ideas is always the kind whose ideas are idiotic.
- The life of man in this world is like the life of a fly in a room filled with 100 boys, each armed with a fly-swatter.
- The New Deal began, like the Salvation Army, by promising to save humanity. It ended, again like the Salvation Army began, by running flop-houses and disturbing the peace.
- Wealth – Any income that is at least $100 more a year than the income of one’s wife’s sister’s husband.
Promoting the living works of Henry Louis Mencken, the "Sage of Baltimore"
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Mr Mencken Tweets
HLMenckenBot
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Mr Mencken on CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley
Mr Mencken was used to introduce the final segment of the CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley for 2013-08-05. The story was about Carol Ott of Baltimore who shames owners of run-down property in the city by posting their names and photographs of their falling-down buildings on her website http://slumlordwatch.wordpress.com/. The introductory part of the […]
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Mr Mencken on Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn
Mr Mencken on Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn as performed by Dr John C. “Chuck” Chalberg, professor of history at Normandale Community College in Bloomington, MN. For more on Mr Mencken’s opinion of Mark Twain and Huckleberry Finn, see “Mark Twain: Popularity Index” and “Our One Authentic Giant” in William H. Nolte, H. L. Mencken’s Smart […]
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Oliver Platt reads Mr Mencken’s “The Politician” (1940)
Oliver Platt reads Mr Mencken’s “The Politician”. The piece can be found in the Chrestomathy and is an adaptation of Mr Mencken’s lecture before the Institute of Arts and Sciences, Columbia University, January 4, 1940.
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Mencken on Drinking Alcohol
In this excerpt from an interview conducted by Donald Kirkley on June 30, 1948, the ombibulous Mr Mencken comments on alcoholic beverages and offers timeless advice on how to enjoy alcohol.
© The Mencken Society 2022