“The great artists of the world are never Puritans, and seldom even ordinarily respectable.”

—  H.L. Mencken

Source: 1910s, Prejudices, First Series (1919), Ch. 16
Context: The great artists of the world are never Puritans, and seldom even ordinarily respectable. No virtuous man — that is, virtuous in the Y. M. C. A. sense — has ever painted a picture worth looking at, or written a symphony worth hearing, or a book worth reading.

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H.L. Mencken photo
H.L. Mencken 281
American journalist and writer 1880–1956

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