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H.L. Mencken: Prejudices: First, Second, and Third Series

Book by H. L. Mencken · 21 quotes · Men, Literature, American Literature

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H.L. Mencken: Prejudices: First, Second, and Third Series Quotes

“Here is one of the fundamental defects of American fiction--perhaps the one character that sets it off sharply from all other known kinds of contemporary fiction. It habitually exhibits, not a man of delicate organization in revolt against the inexplicable tragedy of existence, but a man of low sensibilities and elemental desires yielding himself gladly to his environment, and so achieving what, under a third-rate civilization, passes for success. To get on: this is the aim. To weigh and reflect, to doubt and rebel: this is the thing to be avoided.”

MenKindCharacterDesireLiteratureExistenceFictionKnownDoubtEnvironmentAchieveCivilizationLowsOrganizationThirdsTragedyAimFundamentalsRateContemporaryRebelDelicateSensibilityDefectsAvoidedRevoltExhibitsInexplicableContemporary FictionElementalsAmerican Literature
Book:H.L. Mencken: Prejudices: First, Second, and Third Series
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“The aim of poetry, it appears, is to fill the mind with lofty thoughts--not to give it joy, but to give it a grand and somewhat gaudy sense of virtue. The essay is a weapon against the degenerate tendencies of the age. The novel, properly conceived, is a means of uplifting the spirit; its aim is to inspire, not merely to satisfy the low curiosity of man in man.”

MenGivingMindMeanAgeJoySpiritLiteratureNovelVirtueInspireWeaponsLowsAimCuriosityTendenciesUpliftingEssaysLoftyDegeneratesAmerican LiteratureGaudy
Book:H.L. Mencken: Prejudices: First, Second, and Third Series
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“As if paralyzed by the national fear of ideas, the democratic distrust of whatever strikes beneath the prevailing platitudes, it evades all resolute and honest dealing with what, after all, must be every healthy literature's elementary materials.”

IfsIdeasLiteratureHonestMaterialsHealthyDemocraticStrikesDistrustPrevailingParalyzedResoluteAmerican LiteraturePlatitudes
Book:H.L. Mencken: Prejudices: First, Second, and Third Series
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“One is conscious of no brave and noble earnestness in it, of no generalized passion for intellectual and spiritual adventure, of no organized determination to think things out. What is there is a highly self-conscious and insipid correctness, a bloodless respectability submergence of matter in manner--in brief, what is there is the feeble, uninspiring quality of German painting and English music.”

ThinkingSelfMatterSpiritualPassionLiteratureQualityPaintingAdventureIntellectualConsciousDeterminationBraveNobleOrganizedSelf ConsciousCorrectnessRespectabilityAmerican LiteratureEarnestnessInsipidUninspiringEnglish Music
Book:H.L. Mencken: Prejudices: First, Second, and Third Series
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“The fundamental trouble with marriage is that it shakes a man's confidence in himself, and so greatly diminishes his general competence and effectiveness. His habit of mind becomes that of a commander who has lost a decisive and calamitous battle. He quite trusts himself thereafter.”

MenMindLostMarriageTroubleHabitBattleFundamentalsShakesWeddingDiminishCompetenceEffectivenessCommandersHabits Of Mind
Book:H.L. Mencken: Prejudices: First, Second, and Third Series
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“The truth is . . . that the great artists of the world are never puritans, and seldom ever ordinarily respectable. No virtuous man - that is, virtuous in the YMCA sense - has ever painted a picture worth looking at, or written a symphony worth hearing, or a book worth reading, and it is highly improbable that the thing has ever been done by a virtuous woman.”

MenWorldArtBookDoneArtistReadingWrittenTruth IsHearingVirtuousGreat ArtSymphonyRespectableGreat ArtistImprobablePuritanWorth ReadingVirtuous WomanYmca
Book:H.L. Mencken: Prejudices: First, Second, and Third Series
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“This passion, so unordered and yet so potent, explains the capacity for teaching that one frequently observes in scientific men of high attainments in their specialties-for example, Huxley, Ostwald, Karl Ludwig, Virchow, Billroth, Jowett, William G. Sumner, Halsted and Osler-men who knew nothing whatever about the so-called science of pedagogy, and would have derided its alleged principles if they had heard them stated.”

IfsMenDreamPassionPrinciplesHeardTeachingExampleCapacityAttainmentSpecialtyPedagogyHuxley
Book:H.L. Mencken: Prejudices: First, Second, and Third Series
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“What chiefly distinguishes the daily press is its incurable fear of ideas, its constant effort to evade the discussion of fundamentals by translating all issues into a few elemental fears, its incessant reduction of all reflection to mere emotion.”

IdeasFearEffortEmotionIssuesReflectionFundamentalsPressesConstantMereDiscussionTranslateReductionElementalsIncessant
Book:H.L. Mencken: Prejudices: First, Second, and Third Series
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