Home / Quotes / Quote by H. L. Mencken

Quote by H. L. Mencken

“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.”

Quote by H. L. Mencken

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

Work

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

H.L. Mencken's Prejudices: First, Second, and Third Series is a compilation of his insightful and often humorous essays, which delve into a wide range of subjects including politics, literature, and society. Mencken's sharp wit and incisive commentary make this work a classic in American literary criticism. more

Author

H. L. Mencken was an American journalist, essayist, satirist, cultural critic, and scholar of American English. Born on September 12, 1880, and passing away on January 29, 1956, Mencken is renowned for his significant contributions to American culture and language, particularly through his satirical essays and critical analyses of the American establishment. more

You May Also Like

“If there was ever a dissenter from the national optimismit was surely Edgar Allan Poe--without question the bravest and mostoriginal, if perhaps also the least orderly and judicious, of all the critics that we have produced.”

Ifs Literature Critics Orderly American Literature Allan Poe

Author:H. L. Mencken

“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.”

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

“Our literature, despite several false starts that promised much, is chiefly remarkable, now as always, for its respectable mediocrity.”

Literature Despite Remarkable Mediocrity Respectable American Literature

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

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

“Every reader of the Dreiser novels must cherish astounding specimens--of awkward, platitudinous marginalia, of whole scenes spoiled by bad writing, of phrases as brackish as so many lumps of sodium hyposulphite.”

Writing Whole Literature Novel Reader Scene Phrases Cherish Awkward Spoiled Lumps American Literature Bad Writing Sodium

Book:A book of prefaces

Source: A book of prefaces

“Such is the art of writing as Dreiser understands it and practices it--an endless piling up of minutiae, an almost ferocious tracking down of ions, electrons and molecules, an unshakable determination to tell it all. One is amazed by the mole-like diligence of the man, and no less by his exasperating disregard for the ease of his readers.”

“One does not arise from such a book as Sister Carrie with a smirk of satisfaction; one leaves it infinitely touched.”

Doe Book Literature Satisfaction Arise Touched Carrie Sister American Literature Smirk

Book:A book of prefaces

Source: A book of prefaces

“To believe that Russia has got rid of the evils of capitalism takes a special kind of mind. It is the same kind of mind that believes that a Holy Roller has got rid of sin.”

Mind Believe Kind Evil Sin Special Holy Capitalism Russia Credulity

Author:H. L. Mencken

“The believing mind reaches its perihelion in the so-called Liberals. They believe in each and every quack who sets up his booth inthe fairgrounds, including the Communists. The Communists have some talents too, but they always fall short of believing in the Liberals.”

Mind Believe Fall Talent Including Communist Quacks

Author:H. L. Mencken

“We have had more brilliant Presidents than Cleveland, and one or two who were considerably more profound, but we have never had one, at least since Washington, whose fundamental character was solider and more admirable.”

Two Character President Fundamentals Profound Brilliant Admirable Cleveland

Book:Mencken Chrestomathy

Source: Mencken Chrestomathy

“What are the characters that I discern most clearly in the so-called Anglo-Saxon type of man? I may answer at once that two stickout above all others. One is his curious and apparently incurable incompetence--his congenital inability to do any difficult thing easily and well, whether it be isolating a bacillus or writing a sonata. The other is his astounding susceptibility to fears and alarms--in short, his hereditary cowardice.... There is no record in history of any Anglo-Saxon nation entering upon any great war without allies.”

Source: Mencken Chrestomathy