Here’s an interesting quote by H. L. Mencken:
Self-respect: the secure feeling that no one, as yet, is suspicious.
H. L. (Henry Louis) Mencken (September 12, 1880 – January 29, 1956) was a twentieth century journalist and social critic, a cynic and a freethinker, known as the “Sage of Baltimore.” He is often regarded as one of the most influential American writers of the first half of the 20th century.
Mencken was an outspoken defender of and freedom of conscience, civil rights, an opponent of persecution and of injustice and of the puritanism and self-righteousness that masks the oppressive impulse.
…he played an important role in ending America’s preoccupation with fundamentalist Christianity, and opened the way for a secularist revival.
Alas the fundamentalist are back…:(
His epitaph reads:
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.
P. J. O’Rourke called Mencken the “…creator of a new and distinct style of journalism I like to call ‘big-city smartass.’”
All info about Mencken from Brainy Encyclopedia.
maryt 
