It's difficult to publicize a man like H.L. Mencken. Viewed as a terrible anti-semite, in reality, a critic of everything, with a penchant for horrific hyperbole. As one who showed a marked indifference to the ramifications of his diatribes, it is hard to deny his wit.
"I never lecture, not because I am shy or a bad speaker, but simply because I detest the sort of people who go to lectures and don't want to meet them."
"An Idealist is one who, on noticing that a rose smells better than a cabbage, concludes that it will also make better soup."
"Self-respect: the secure feeling that no one, as yet, is suspicious."
"Moral certainty is always a sign of cultural inferiority. The more uncivilized the man, the surer he is that he knows precisely what is right and what is wrong. All human progress, even in morals, has been the work of men who have doubted the current moral values, not of men who have whooped them up and tried to enforce them. The truly civilized man is always skeptical and tolerant, in this field as in all others. His culture is based on "I am not too sure."
"For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong".
"If, after I depart this vale, you ever remember me and have thought to please my ghost, forgive some sinner, and wink your eye at some homely girl."–Epitaph