“The great artists of the world are never Puritans, and seldom even ordinarily respectable.”

— H. L. Mencken, Prejudices, First Series, 1919, Ch. 16

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.”

“Any one thing in the creation is sufficient to demonstrate a Providence to an humble and grateful mind.”

“If music be the food of love, play on.”

“Beauty is the mark God sets upon virtue.”

“If eyes were made for seeing, then beauty is its own excuse for being.”

“The chief forms of beauty are order and symmetry and definiteness.”

“Poetry is finer and more philosophical than history; for poetry expresses the universal, and history only the particular.”