“No man can get anywhere in this world in any really and endurable manner without some recourse to books.”

— H. L. Mencken, The Evening Sun, 1939

About H. L. Mencken

1880 – 1956

American journalist and critic, known for "The American Language".

“The older I grow, the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom.”

“A man may be a fool and not know it—but not if he is married.”

“Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.”

“The wisest man may be wiser to-day than he was yesterday, and to-morrow than he is to-day.”

“Give thyself time to learn something new and good, and cease to be whirled around.”

“It is the mark of an educated man to look for precision in each class of things.”

“For the things we have to learn before we can do, we learn by doing.”

“The value of a college education is not the learning of many facts but the training of the mind to think.”

“It was subtle of God to learn Greek when he wished to become an author—and not to learn it better.”