"The true function of art is to..." - Quote by H L Mencken

“The physical business of writing is unpleasant to me, but the psychic satisfaction of discharging bad ideas in worse English makes me forget it.”

“The only liberty an inferior man really cherishes is the liberty to quit work, stretch out in the sun, and scratch himself.”

“The only good bureaucrat is one with a pistol at his head. Put it in his hand and it's good-bye to the Bill of Rights.”

“A poet or philosopher should have no fault to find with his age if it only permits him to do his work undisturbed in his own corner; nor with his fate if the corner granted him allows of his following his vocation without having to think about other people.”

“The naive was only a part of my fairy tales; humour was the real salt in them.”

“O brave poets, keep back nothing; Nor mix falsehood with the whole! Look up Godward! speak the truth in Worthy song from earnest soul! Hold, in high poetic duty, Truest Truth the fairest Beauty.”

“If there had been a censorship of the press in Rome we should have had today neither Horace nor Juvenal, nor the philosophical writings of Cicero.”

“The psychic depths are nature, and nature is creative life.”

“Any good piece of material like Shakespeare ought to be open to reinterpretation.”