Talk:H. L. Mencken

From Wikiquote

What gives? Is this a Wikiquote record for imbalance between sourceds and attributeds? Are any of the attributeds properly attributed, or is Mencken a modern Quinapalus or Mrs Harris? —This unsigned comment is by 14:08, 16 April 2005 (talk • contribs) 203.51.103.134.

I think the Puritan quote is sourced. It's a well known quote.

• "Attributed" means that these quotes were added without sources being provided. If the sources had been included, they would have been placed with the quotes labelled "sourced." A "properly attributed" quote is therefore, in Wikiquote practice, a contradiction in terms. Having quotes referred to as attributed doesn't mean they're assumed to be false; it means that they exist, neither true nor false, until someone gets around to verifying them. As usually happens, some of them, perhaps even the majority, will be verified and placed under Sourced along with their sources. Some of these quotes will turn out to have been said by other people; and others will remain attributed because no proof could be found. One thing we're doing now is to replace the term "attributed" with "unsourced" so as to make the distinctions clearer.
  
  Like you, I recognize some of these attributed Mencken quotes as being real. If we had more people working on attributed quotes, we wouldn't have pages like this where the attributed quotes pile up. I've made it my business here to work on this sort of thing, and doubtless I'll get around in time to this page as well.
  
  But the main problem, as always, is that many Wikiquote contributors, perhaps the majority, don't source their contributions. Either they don't know the sources; or they can't be bothered to provide them even if they know them; or they don't even know if the quotes are real when they supply them. People like to add quotes, but they usually don't want to do the actual work of proofing them. It's a dilemma, because what's supposed to make Wikiquote different from the other collections of quotations, whether in online lists or in book form, is this very notion of providing sources. - InvisibleSun 17:37, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

I would add two things to InvisibleSun's excellent reply. First, in Wikimedia projects, there is a distinction between "sourcing" and "verifying". Sourcing means asserting a specific citation of a quote, either in an original work or in another publication that itself cites the quote, if the original is not readily available. (The closer to the original, the better.) However, such a source is merely an assertion, not a guarantee that the quote is legitimate. Verifying a quote is something that any wiki editor can do by checking the source to see if the quote is valid. Since there is no such thing as a Wikiquote editorial board, it is incumbent upon all editors to do this now and then to help keep inaccuracies, mere rumor, and prank-sourcing out of the collection. (Yes, we're very far from being able to do this regularly, but that's the general idea.)

My other comment is that, no, this is not a record for a low Sourced-to-Attributed/Unsourced ratio. Not by a long shot, unfortunately. ☺ ~ Jeff Q (talk) 18:43, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Contents 1 Quote about Conscience 2 'Jackals and Jackasses' 3 'Hoist the Black Flag' 4 Mencken's Creed

[edit] Quote about Conscience

I can source Mencken's quote on conscience. I am writing a paper on ethics and purchased A. Cooke's (1990) "A Vintage Mencken" (originally published in 1955). The conscience quote as it reads on p. 231 is as follows:

"Conscience is the inner voice which (sic) warns us that someone may be looking."

I have no idea where Mencken originally wrote this....I am trusting A. Cooke's quotation. Cooke mentions that the aphorisms in this section were taken from Mencken's "Smart Set" in 1912 among other places.

It appears that Mencken used a "which" instead of a that.....but then there would have been 2 "thats" in close proximity, so it may have been intentional. Nevertheless, I think the (sic) should be put in there so the modern reader knows to avoid "which" unless it is surrounded in commas.

Thanks,

Scott Wowra, PhD

I have a copy of The Vintage Mencken, but I'm interpreting what it says on p. 231 a bit differently. For the sake of others who are reading this, it should be explained that the quote is part of a group entitled "Sententiae," with the following introduction:

"These maxims, epigrams and apothegms cover a long range in time. The earliest were first printed in The Smart Set in 1912; the latest come from notebooks never printed at all. In 1916 I published a collection under the title of A Little Book in C Major. Four years later it was taken, in part, into a revised edition of A Book of Burlesques, and there survived until that book went out of print in the late 30's."

These Sententiae are then grouped into sections according to theme, with the quote about conscience belonging to the first group, "The Mind of Man."

Here's what I would make of this:

1) It means, first of all, that the "I" of the introductory remarks is Mencken himself, not Cooke. Although Cooke was the editor of The Vintage Mencken, he was not born until 1908 and so could not have been the one who said "In 1916 I published," etc. As it turns out, Mencken himself made a selection from his own works, which was eventually published in 1949 as A Mencken Chrestomathy. These Sententiae were a part of that collection. Cooke, re-publishing these sayings in The Vintage Mencken, was including Mencken's introduction along with them.

2) Since these Sententiae are grouped by theme, with no mention in what work each saying can be found, I wouldn't take this necessarily to mean that the first group of sayings, "The Mind of Man," represents the earliest ones printed in The Smart Set. Rather, each of these thematically grouped sayings could have originated in any of the sources named by Mencken. There's no telling, therefore, when or where the quote about conscience was first published. More research would be needed to determine this.

As for the which/that issue, I would agree that the quote is correctedly printed with "which" as in The Vintage Mencken. I wouldn't use a sic because Wikiquote, in collecting quotations and printing them verbatim, is not editing for grammar or making comments on the same. The reader, in short, will have to learn grammar elsewhere: whatever is quoted on these pages should never be assumed as a model for the reader. (For an example of a writer's highly idiosyncratic grammar and punctuation, presented without need for comment, see the Letters section under Samuel Taylor Coleridge). In any case, the debate on when to use "which" and "that" is one, I think, in which good writers may disagree. Kenneth Tynan, for instance, in a 1963 essay "Mencken on Language," was a bit taken aback by the strictures of The New Yorker, "on whose staff I was carefully instructed that 'which is appropriate to non-defining and that to defining clauses.' " - InvisibleSun 21:11, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

• • • • Would you mind sourcing the "conscience" quote, InvisibleSun? The aphorism dissapeared; this certainly was not my doing.**** Wowra (8/22; 8:22 am)

" He who can, does. He who cannot, teaches" is George Bernard Shaw, Maxims for Revolutionists (Man and Superman) 1903, not Mencken.

[edit] 'Jackals and Jackasses'

I think I can source the 'Democracy is the worship of Jackals by Jackasses' quote from the last section of the Mencken's 'Chrestomathy'. I'll add page numbers soon.

[edit] 'Hoist the Black Flag'

This one is from Prejudices, First Series, Chapter 6. I don't have a copy to track down the exact page, but here's a secondary cite [1]. --Jddunn 15:27, 7 January 2009 (UTC)| [2]page 91

[edit] Mencken's Creed

Here is the full version from here

I believe that religion, generally speaking, has been a curse to mankind — that its modest and greatly overestimated services on the ethical side have been more than overcome by the damage it has done to clear and honest thinking.

I believe that no discovery of fact, however trivial, can be wholly useless to the race, and that no trumpeting of falsehood, however virtuous in intent, can be anything but vicious.

I believe that all government is evil, in that all government must necessarily make war upon liberty and the democratic form is as bad as any of the other forms.

I believe that the evidence for immortality is no better than the evidence of witches, and deserves no more respect.

I believe in the complete freedom of thought and speech—alike for the humblest man and the mightiest, and in the utmost freedom of conduct that is consistent with living in organized society.

I believe in the capacity of man to conquer his world, and to find out what it is made of, and how it is run.

I believe in the reality of progress.

I — But the whole thing, after all, may be put very simply. I believe that it is better to tell the truth than to lie. I believe that it is better to be free than to be a slave. And I believe that it is better to know than be ignorant.

LewRockwell.com says, "There is no better way of concluding than to turn to Mencken's noble and moving Credo, written for a "What I Believe" series in a leading magazine." According to the references, the leading magazine is "The Forum (September, 1930), p. 139."

--208.123.186.60 04:02, 21 January 2009 (UTC)