“The one permanent emotion of the inferior man is fear - fear of the unknown, the complex, the inexplicable. What he wants above everything else is safety.”

A sharp-eyed American journalist and satirist of the early 20th century, Mencken’s razor wit and unflinching critique of pretension defined the Baltimore Sun’s editorial pages. His essays and columns skewered political hypocrisy, cultural affectation, and the pretensions of the American mainstream, earning him a reputation as the era’s most fearless voice of skepticism.