The Mencken Society

Promoting the living works of Henry Louis Mencken, the "Sage of Baltimore"

  • A celebrity is one who is known to many persons he is glad he doesn’t know.
  • Conscience is a mother-in-law whose visit never ends.
  • Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.
  • Every man is his own hell.
  • Historian – An unsuccessful novelist.
  • Misogynist – A man who hates women as much as women hate one another.
  • Optimist – The sort of man who marries his sister’s best friend.
  • Puritanism – The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy. 
  • The kind of man who demands that government enforce his ideas is always the kind whose ideas are idiotic.
  • The life of man in this world is like the life of a fly in a room filled with 100 boys, each armed with a fly-swatter.
  • The New Deal began, like the Salvation Army, by promising to save humanity.  It ended, again like the Salvation Army began, by running flop-houses and disturbing the peace.
  • Wealth – Any income that is at least $100 more a year than the income of one’s wife’s sister’s husband.

Promoting the living works of Henry Louis Mencken, the "Sage of Baltimore"

  • Der Tag 2024

    September 14, 2024 (Saturday) Enoch Pratt Free Library, 400 Cathederal St 10:30 AM Annual Meeting of The Mencken Society. Speakers: Fred Hobson by way of remote conferencing and a discussion between John Barr, professor of history at Lone Star College, and Darryl Hart. 2:00 PM The 2024 Mencken Memorial Lecture will be presented by Thomas…

  • Calvin K. Kobsa, 1927-2014

    Society member Calvin Kern Kobsa died at the age of eighty-six at Gilchrist Hospice Care in Towson on May 10, 2014. Calvin, the son of Charles J. Kobsa, a piano maker and tuner, and Marie Kern Kobsa, was born in Baltimore July 31, 1927. He was graduated from Polytechnic Institute and earned a bachelor’s degree…

  • A Mencken Cornucopia

    The Enoch Pratt Free Library continues to post pictorial treasures from its Mencken holdings on the Web and we encourage society members to take advantage of this cornucopia. Begin your explorations at the H. L. Mencken Room webpage.

  • Ninth Annual Mencken Grave-site Memorial Service, 2014-01-26 (Sun)

    The 9th Annual Mencken Grave-site Memorial Service will be held Sunday, January 26, 2014 at 2:00 PM at the Mencken family plot in Loudon Park Cemetery. Signs will point the way to the grave-site. After the brief (less than 10 minutes) ceremony, attendees are invited to Spirits West Country Club, 2601 Wilkens Ave. Loudon Park…

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  • Bodine’s Industry: The Dignity of Work

    Seventy prints of images showing people at work taken by A. Aubrey Bodine, Mr Mencken’s professional colleague, will be on display at the Baltimore Museum of Industry (BMI) from October 15, 2013 to February 6, 2014. On November 7, 2013 from 7:00 pm to 8:30 pm, Jennifer Bodine, Aubrey Bodine’s daughter, will present a lecture…

  • Update: Mencken Oktoberfest at the Goethe Institut Is Now Free

    The lecture and showing of Inherit the Wind at the Goethe-Institut are now free of charge but there will be no buffet and no Oktoberfest beer. Lunch may be had at any of the nearby restaurants. We hope to see you on Saturday, October 26, 2013 at 10:30 am. The registration deadline has been extended…

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