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H.L. MENCKEN REVISITED PART 1
I’VE ALREADY SHARED MY FAVORITE H.L. MENCKEN line: “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.” Another equally appropriate one these days is “On some great and glorious day, the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”
Who Was This Acerbic Wit? Wikipedia recounts, “Henry Louis Mencken (September 12, 1880 – January 29, 1956) was an American journalist, essayist, satirist, cultural critic, and scholar of American English….”
The American Language, by H.L. Mencken, Coyote Canyon Press, 2012.
As a scholar, Mencken is known for The American Language, a multi-volume study of how the English language is spoken in the United States…. Mencken was a supporter of scientific progress and was critical of osteopathy and chiropractic. He was also an open critic of economics.”
Image from Foundation for Economic Education.
As described here at SimanaitisSays, “H.L. Mencken was known as the Sage of Baltimore. Alas, some of his writings were racist, anti-Semitic, anti-Anglo-Saxon and elitist. Others were equal-opportunity acerbics aimed at us all.”
Here, in Parts 1 and 2 today and tomorrow, are several worthy of quoting. Sans-quote comments are mine.
On Religion(s). “We must respect the other fellow’s religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart.”
Ouch.
Complex Problems, Simple Answers. “For every complex problem there is a solution that is clear, simple, and wrong.”
Wikipedia observes that “His satirical reporting on the Scopes Trial, which he dubbed the ‘Monkey Trial,’ also gained him attention. Mencken defended the evolutionary views of Charles Darwin but spoke unfavorably of many prominent physicists and had little regard for pure mathematics.”
More’s the pity; by contrast, one of my favorite satirists is mathematician Tom Lehrer.
On Piracy? “Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.”
It’s sorta Mencken’s version of Howard Beale’s line in the film Network.
We’ll continue this in Part 2 tomorrow, even with a couple of non-acerbic lines.
© Dennis Simanaitis, SimanaitisSays.com, 2025
Simanaitis Says 
Thank you, Dennis, for delving into the acerbic Mencken, one of the Maryland very quotable literati whom I admire … along with Poe and Barth. What I especially love about each is that their writings and quotations have been championed by all sides of the social and political spectrum, being succinct and quotable, yet open to multiple interpretations.
I especially recall that same Mencken quote being quite popular during the last administration.
You’ve added a lot to my reading list through the years, and if not familiar, may I recommend John Barth.
What I found remarkable was while in graduate school in the ’80s, he was the subject in one of my literature classes, so I dug up my dogeared ’50s edition of The Floating Opera … only to find the professor said I missed the points in my essay papers … which surprised us both. Only then did we realize that he had revised the novel in ’67, with many substantial alterations!
My next paper was an analysis of the two editions, relating his Floating Opera edition changes to the directional changes in his writings through the years.
I feel you would find the breadth and variety in his writings to be pithy and appealing.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Barth
Thanks, Bob, for your kind words and the Barth recommendation. He’s new to me.
A neat story about the two dissimilar editions.—d