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"
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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…
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The Free Lance Rides Again
On the 8th of May, We begin daily publication (with the exclusion of Sundays) of Mr Mencken’s Free Lance columns, each column posted on its its anniversary date. Mr Mencken produced this column six days a week for four-and-a-half years. In the first years (1911-1914), he took on political and other follies of Baltimore City…
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Talk: “Mencken the German American”
The Society for the History of the Germans in Maryland (SHGM) will have as guest speaker at their annual dinner meeting on September 29, 2015 the incomparable Marion Rodgers who will remark on “Mencken the German American: Outside, Looking In.” Where: Zion Lutheran Church, Gay and Lexington Streets. When: September 29, 2015 starting at 6:00…
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2015 Mencken Graveside Memorial Service
The 10th Annual Service will be held Sunday, January 25, 2015 at 2:00 PM at the Mencken Family Grave site, Loudon Park Cemetery, 3620 Wilkens Avenue, Baltimore. Signs will point the way to the grave-site. After the brief memorial service attendees are invited, as usual, to the Spirits West Country Club, 2601 Wilkens Avenue. Loudon…
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Der Tag (Mencken Day) 2014
Mencken Day 2014 will be held September 13, 2014, at the Enoch Pratt Free Library, 400 Cathedral Street, Baltimore, MD. 10:30 AM: Mencken Society Annual Meeting with guest speaker Marion Elizabeth Rodgers. Marion’s latest book is H. L. Mencken: The Days Trilogy, Expanded Edition (The Library of America, 2014). 2:00 PM: The 2014 Mencken Memorial…
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TRIPLY HAPPY
The Library of America will be releasing a new edition of the Days books, edited by the incomparable Marion E. Rodgers: “Mencken continued to add to them after publication, annotating and expanding each volume in type- scripts sealed to the public for twenty-five years after his death. Until now, most of this material—often more frank…
© The Mencken Society 2022