H. L. Mencken Quotes

There are no mute, inglorious Miltons, save in the hallucinations of poets. The one sound test of Milton is that he functions as a Milton.

H. L. Mencken

• Poets
• Functions
• Hallucinations
• Mute
• Inglorious

• Previous
• Next

Quotes to Explore

• I'm a very spontaneous person. If someone aggravates me, I'm going to go after them. I wake up every morning, and I say, 'What bad guys should I go after today?'

  

  Carl Paladino
  • Up
  • Bad
  • Today

• There has always been a saying in baseball that you can't make a hitter, but I think you can improve a hitter. More than you can improve a fielder. More mistakes are made hitting than in any other part of the game.

  

  Ted Williams
  • Game
  • Baseball
  • Mistakes

• Perhaps a hundred people assembled one evening, May 15, 1876, at the time when the country was celebrating the hundredth anniversary of its political independence.

  

  Felix Adler
  • People
  • Time
  • Country

• As a longtime former resident of 15 years in Washington, I wish that everybody would stay off the Mall with their political cause so that we can get out there, you know, and play flag football or Frisbee, or walk the dog or something - you know, which is, you know, what the National Mall should be for, in my personal opinion.

  

  P. J. O'Rourke
  • Political
  • Wish
  • Football

• I believe people have to follow their dreams - I did.

  

  Larry Ellison
  • People
  • Believe
  • Dreams

• At least I can say that I'm honest.

  

  Adam Lambert
  • Say
  • Honest
  • I Can

• I was probably the best that ever walked this earth. And I could take a punch. I could deliver a punch. I didn't have the hardest punch in the world but my punches were sharp and they were crisp. And if you took too many of them, you would be knocked out.

  

  Larry Holmes
  • World
  • Earth
  • Best

• I suppose I sometimes used to act like I wasn't a human being... Sometimes I look back at myself and remember things I used to say, or my hairstyle, and I cringe.

  

  Madonna Breakfast Club
  • Remember
  • Myself
  • Sometimes

• The flute was an alternative to being a small fish in an increasingly bigger pool filled with a number of great guitar players.

  

  Ian Anderson
  • Great
  • Small
  • Guitar

• I've always been captivated by the Voynich Manuscript - the mysterious, 15th-century encrypted codex that still baffles cryptologists, linguists, and historians.

  

  Dan Brown
  • Always
  • Mysterious
  • Been

• I think the older you get, the more 'let's cut to the chase' you get, 'let's quit quibbling about this, let's tell it like it is.'

  

  Vicki Lawrence
  • Think
  • You
  • Quit

• I will not say sorry and be pardoned for doing a godly act.

  

  Imelda Marcos
  • Sorry

• The poet is in command of his fantasy, while it is exactly the mark of the neurotic that he is possessed by his fantasy.

  

  Lionel Trilling

• We might be more inclined to think about the longer term if we were more aware of what is happening around us. Perhaps daily weather forecasts could include a few basic facts about the Earth's vital signs or details of where climate change is increasing the likelihood of damaging weather?

  

  Prince Charles
  • Earth
  • Daily

• I want to make pop cool again, and the only way I can do that is by being ambitious and grand.

  

  The Weeknd
  • Cool

• Fix a few things here, improve a few things there, launch a new feature every so often. That's coasting. And I don't want Basecamp to coast.

  

  Jason Fried

• Play Trivial Pursuit with me, and you'll be astonished. I can remember every outfit I wore to every party going back to 1983.

  

  James St. James
  • Remember
  • Party

• Once you've opened yourself up, it's best to go all the way.

  

  Neil Simon
  • Way
  • Yourself
  • Open

• I decided that it was not wisdom that enabled poets to write their poetry, but a kind of instinct or inspiration, such as you find in seers and prophets who deliver all their sublime messages without knowing in the least what they mean.

  

  Socrates
  • Wisdom
  • Poetry
  • Inspiration

• I have claimed that Escape is one of the main functions of fairy-stories, and since I do not disapprove of them, it is plain that I do not accept the tone of scorn or pity with which 'Escape' is now so often used. Why should a man be scorned if, finding himself in prison, he tries to get out and go home? Or if he cannot do so, he thinks and talks about other topics than jailers and prison-walls?

  

  J. R. R. Tolkien
  • Prison
  • Escape
  • Functions

• Unjustly poets we asperse: Truth shines the brighter clad in verse, And all the fictions they pursue Do but insinuate what is true.

  

  Jonathan Swift
  • True
  • Poets
  • Fictions

• For the canons of good society are, or should be, the same as the canons of art. Form is absolutely essential to it.

  

  Oscar Wilde
  • Good
  • Art
  • Society

• There are no mute, inglorious Miltons, save in the hallucinations of poets. The one sound test of Milton is that he functions as a Milton.

  

  H. L. Mencken
  • Poets
  • Functions
  • Hallucinations