Mencken-isms
I should be done with My Life as Author and Editor shortly, but in the meantime... here are a few gems from the man himself that made me smirk (and there may have been some cackling involved).
Enjoy!
A church is a place in which gentlemen who have never been to heaven brag about it to persons who will never get there. A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin. A newspaper is a device for making the ignorant more ignorant and the crazy crazier. A society made up of individuals who were all capable of original thought would probably be unendurable. A Sunday school is a prison in which children do penance for the evil conscience of their parents. Alimony- the ransom that the happy pay to the devil. Before a man speaks it is always safe to assume that he is a fool. After he speaks, it is seldom necessary to assume it. Conscience is a mother-in-law whose visit never ends. Conscience is the inner voice that warns us that someone might be looking. Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard. Don't overestimate the decency of the human race. For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. I confess I enjoy democracy immensely. It is incomparably idiotic, and hence incomparably amusing. I hate all sports as rabidly as a person who likes sports hates common sense.