The great artists of the world are never Puritans, and seldom even ordinarily respectable.
Interpretation
True artists often challenge societal norms and expectations, embracing a more unconventional lifestyle.
H. L. Mencken's quote suggests that many of the world's greatest artists do not conform to the conventional standards of respectability and morality. Instead, they often lead lives that are seen as rebellious or unrefined, which allows them to push boundaries and explore deeper truths in their art. This quote emphasizes that creativity often thrives outside the confines of societal expectations.
In practice
In a discussion about the role of artists in society, one could use this quote to emphasize that true creativity often comes from those who defy conventions.
I know a good many men of great learning-that is, men born with an extraordinary eagerness and capacity to acquire knowledge. One and all, they tell me that they can't recall learning anything of any value in school. All that schoolmasters managed to accomplish with them was to test and determine the amount of knowledge that they had already acquired independently-and not infrequently the determination was made clumsily and inaccurately.
It takes a long while for a naturally trustful person to reconcile himself to the idea that after all God will not help him
It is the theory of all modern civilized governments that they protect and foster the liberty of the citizen; it is the practice of all of them to limit its exercise, and sometimes very narrowly.
The central belief of every moron is that he is the victim of a mysterious conspiracy against his common rights and true deserts.
The cure for the evils of democracy is more democracy.
It is my conviction that no normal man ever fell in love, within the ordinary meaning of the term, after the age of thirty.
I think if I've worked anything through with screenwriting it's that I'm not going to be able to work anything through.
The authour who imitates his predecessors only by furnishing himself with thoughts and elegances out of the same general magazine of literature, can with little more propriety be reproached as a plagiary, than the architect can be censured as a mean copier of Angelo or Wren, because he digs his marble out of the same quarry, squares his stones by the same art, and unites them in columns of the same orders.
When I went to see certain shows when I was a kid, they changed my life. They made me tap into that place inside myself that I was unable to get to, so music is that tool, that bridge, and that's the kind of music I'm interested in making.
Art is not living. It is the use of living. The artist has the ability to take the living and use it in a certain way and produce art.
Got a head full of lightning, a hat full of rain.
Perhaps Bach and Beethoven are strange bedfellows for Mickey Mouse, but it's all been a lot of fun.
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