H. L. Mencken Quotes About Reading

• The truth is . . . that the great artists of the world are never puritans, and seldom ever ordinarily respectable. No virtuous man - that is, virtuous in the YMCA sense - has ever painted a picture worth looking at, or written a symphony worth hearing, or a book worth reading, and it is highly improbable that the thing has ever been done by a virtuous woman.

  H. L. Mencken

  Art, Book, Reading

  H. L. Mencken, Marion Elizabeth Rodgers (2010). “H.L. Mencken: Prejudices: First, Second, and Third Series”, Hubsta Ltd

• The chief knowledge that's man on from reading books is the knowledge that very few of them are worth reading.

  H. L. Mencken

  Funny, Book, Reading

  "A little book in C major".

• In the main, there are two sorts of books: those that no one reads and those that no one ought to read.

  H. L. Mencken

  Funny, Book, Reading

  "A little book in C major".

• The capacity of human beings to bore one another seems to be vastly greater than that of any other animal.

  H. L. Mencken

  Book, Reading, Animal

  Notebooks (1956) "Minority Report"

• [A formula for answering controversial letters -- without even reading the letters:] Dear Sir (or Madame): You may be right.

  H. L. Mencken

  Reading, Letters, May

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