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"

  • Der Tag 2024

    September 14, 2024 (Saturday) Enoch Pratt Free Library, 400 Cathederal St 10:30 AM Annual Meeting of The Mencken Society. Speakers: Fred Hobson by way of remote conferencing and a discussion between John Barr, professor of history at Lone Star College, and Darryl Hart. 2:00 PM The 2024 Mencken Memorial Lecture will be presented by Thomas…

  • Updated Map to the Mencken Grave-Site

    The map posted on the 16th (see below) has been revised.

  • Road Blocked

    The road we have been taking to get to Mr Mencken’s grave-site has been blocked. We have posted a map showing another way of getting there. We regret there will be no directional signs.

  • Map to the Mencken Grave-site

    [Updated 2019-01-22]

  • 14th Mencken Graveside Memorial (2019-01-27 14:00)

    The Mencken Graveside Memorial will once again be conducted by Oleg Panczenko at the Mencken gravesite at Loudon Park Cemetery, 3620 Wilkens Ave, Baltimore, MD. The brief memorial will be held Sunday, January 27, 2018 at 2:00 PM. Attendees are invited to retire to Spirits West, 2601 Wilkens Ave. after the memorial. Loudon Park Cemetery:…

  • The Collected Essays and Journalism of H. L. Mencken

    S. T. Joshi has begun issuing editions of Mencken’s early newspaper and magazine work as part of a long-range project titled The Collected Essays and Journalism of H. L. Mencken. He is issuing these books through Amazon’s CreateSpace (print) and Kindle (ebook) platforms. Eight volumes will contain material from the Smart Set. The first volume…

© The Mencken Society 2022