H. L. Mencken
(12 Sep 1880 - 29 Jan 1956)

American journalist and satirist who was known as 'the Sage of Baltimore.' It was in his satirical reports on the Scopes trial in Tennessee that the "Monkey" trial name was coined.

Science Quotes by H. L. Mencken (10)

As for Lindbergh, another eminent servant of science, all he proved by his gaudy flight across the Atlantic was that God takes care of those who have been so fortunate as to come into the world foolish.
Expressing skepticism that adventure does not necessarily contribute to scientific knowledge.
— H. L. Mencken
'Penguin's Eggs'. From the American Mercury (Sep 1930), 123-24. Reprinted in A Second Mencken Chrestomathy: A New Selection from the Writings of America's Legendary Editor, Critic, and Wit (2006), 167.
See also:  |  Flight (14)  |  Charles A. Lindbergh (12)

By profession a biologist, [Thomas Henry Huxley] covered in fact the whole field of the exact sciences, and then bulged through its four fences. Absolutely nothing was uninteresting to him. His curiosity ranged from music to theology and from philosophy to history. He didn't simply know something about everything; he knew a great deal about everything.
— H. L. Mencken
'Thomas Henry Huxley.' In the Baltimore Evening Sun (4 May 1925). Reprinted in A Second Mencken Chrestomathy: A New Selection from the Writings of America's Legendary Editor, Critic, and Wit (2006), 157.
See also:  |  Curiosity (14)  |  Field (14)  |  Thomas Henry Huxley (62)  |  Knowledge (330)

Democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey-cage.
— H. L. Mencken
Chrestomathy (1949), 622. In James E. Combs, Dan D. Nimmo, The Comedy of Democracy (1996), 19. by James E. Combs, Dan D. Nimmo
See also:  |  Art And Science (17)  |  Monkey (10)

Let no one mistake it for comedy, farcical though it may be in all its details. It serves notice on the country that Neanderthal man is organizing in these forlorn backwaters of the land, led by a fanatic, rid of sense and devoid of conscience.
{Commenting on the Scopes Monkey Trial, while reporting for the Baltimore Sun.]
— H. L. Mencken
In Michael Shermer, Why Darwin Matters (2006), 26.
See also:  |  Conscience (6)  |  Farce (2)  |  Mistake (6)  |  Organize (2)  |  Scopes_John (3)  |  Sense (32)  |  Trial (6)

Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence.
— H. L. Mencken
An Ideal Husband (1906), 82. In Lily Splane, Quantum Consciousness (2004), 309
See also:  |  Imagination (50)  |  Intellect (47)  |  Love (29)

Only to often on meeting scientific men, even those of genuine distiction, one finds that they are dull fellows and very stupid. They know one thing to excess; they know nothing else. Pursuing facts too doggedly and unimaginatively, they miss all the charming things that are not facts. ... Too much learning, like too little learning, is an unpleasant and dangerous thing.
— H. L. Mencken
A Second Mencken Chrestomathy: A New Selection from the Writings of America's Legendary Editor, Critic, and Wit (2006), 157.
See also:  |  Dangerous (8)  |  Distinction (2)  |  Dull (4)  |  Fact (139)  |  Imagination (50)  |  Knowledge (330)  |  Learning (43)  |  Pursuit (7)  |  Scientist (71)  |  Stupid (6)

The effort to reconcile science and religion is almost always made, not by theologians, but by scientists unable to shake off altogether the piety absorbed with their mother's milk.
— H. L. Mencken
Minority Report (1956), 166.
See also:  |  Science And Religion (76)  |  Scientist (71)  |  Theologian (4)

The scientist who yields anything to theology, however slight, is yielding to ignorance and false pretenses, and as certainly as if he granted that a horse-hair put into a bottle of water will turn into a snake.
— H. L. Mencken
Minority Report (1956), 33.
See also:  |  Ignorance (62)  |  Science And Religion (76)

The truth is that the scientific value of Polar exploration is greatly exaggerated. The thing that takes men on such hazardous trips is really not any thirst for knowledge, but simply a yearning for adventure. ... A Polar explorer always talks grandly of sacrificing his fingers and toes to science. It is an amiable pretention, but there is no need to take it seriously.
— H. L. Mencken
'Penguin's Eggs'. From the American Mercury (Sep 1930), 123-24. Reprinted in A Second Mencken Chrestomathy: A New Selection from the Writings of America's Legendary Editor, Critic, and Wit (2006), 166.
See also:  |  Exploration (25)  |  Finger (3)  |  Sacrifice (2)  |  Toe (2)

[Thomas Henry] Huxley, I believe, was the greatest Englishman of the Nineteenth Century—perhaps the greatest Englishman of all time. When one thinks of him, one thinks inevitably of such men as Goethe and Aristotle. For in him there was that rich, incomparable blend of intelligence and character, of colossal knowledge and high adventurousness, of instinctive honesty and indomitable courage which appears in mankind only once in a blue moon. There have been far greater scientists, even in England, but there has never been a scientist who was a greater man.
— H. L. Mencken
'Thomas Henry Huxley.' In the Baltimore Evening Sun (4 May 1925). Reprinted in A Second Mencken Chrestomathy: A New Selection from the Writings of America's Legendary Editor, Critic, and Wit (2006), 157.
See also:  |  Aristotle (85)  |  Character (10)  |  England (8)  |  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (39)  |  Thomas Henry Huxley (62)  |  Intelligence (31)  |  Knowledge (330)  |  Scientist (71)


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