H. L. Mencken Quotes About Journalism

• Freedom of press is limited to those who own one.

  H. L. Mencken

  Funny, Freedom, Political

• In my day a reporter who took an assignment was wholly on his own until he got back to the office, and even then he was little molested until his copy was turned in at the desk; today he tends to become only a homunculus at the end of a telephone wire, and the reduction of his observations to prose is commonly farmed out to literary castrati who never leave the office, and hence never feel the wind of the world in their faces or see anything with their own eyes.

  H. L. Mencken

  Eye, Wind, Office

• No reporter of my generation, whatever his genius, ever really rated spats and a walking stick until he had covered both a lynching and a revolution.

  H. L. Mencken

  Walking Sticks, Lynching, Revolution

• American journalism (like the journalism of any other country) is predominantly paltry and worthless. Its pretensions are enormous, but its achievements are insignificant.

  H. L. Mencken

  Country, Achievement, Journalism

  H.L. Mencken (2013). “Minority Report”, p.95, Knopf

• Journalism is to politician as dog is to lamp-post.

  H. L. Mencken

  Dog, Lamps, Journalism

• Life may not be exactly pleasant, but it is at least not dull. Heave yourself into Hell today, and you may miss, tomorrow or next day, another Scopes trial, or another War to End War, or perchance a rich and buxom widow with all her first husband's clothes. There are always more Hardings hatching. I advocate hanging on as long as possible.

  H. L. Mencken

  Husband, War, Next Day

  American Mercury, Apr. 1928

• One seldom discovers a true believer that is worth knowing.

  H. L. Mencken

  Knowing, Agnostic, Journalism

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

• I well recall my horror when I heard for the first time, of a journalist who had laid in a pair of what were then called bicycle pants and taken to golf; it was as if I had encountered a studhorse with his hair done up in frizzes, and pink bowknots peeking out of them. It seemed, in some vague way, ignominious, and even a bit indelicate.

  H. L. Mencken

  Taken, Golf, Hair

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