Birthdate: September 12, 1880
Birthplace: Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.A.
Date of Death: January 29, 1956
Occupation: Author, Critic, and Journalist
Profile: Regarded as one of the most influential American writers of the 20th century. Best known for The American Language.
Website: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._L._Mencken
Number of Quotes: 13
A newspaper is a device for making the ignorant more ignorant and the crazy crazier.
An idealist is one who, on noticing that a rose smells better than a cabbage, concludes that it will also make a better soup.
I go on working for the same reason that a hen goes on laying eggs.
I've made it a rule never to drink by daylight and never to refuse a drink after dark.
In the main, there are two sorts of books: those that no one reads and those that no one ought to read.
In this world of sin and sorrow there is always something to be thankful for; as for me, I rejoice that I am not a Republican.
It is the dull man who is always sure, and the sure man who is always dull.
Journalism is to politician as dog is to lamppost.
Love is like war: easy to begin but very hard to stop.
Love is the delusion that one woman differs from another.
Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence.
Men have a much better time of it than women; for one thing, they marry later; for another thing, they die earlier.
The older I grow the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom.