H. L. Mencken Quotes

Moral certainty is always a sign of cultural inferiority. The more uncivilized the man, the surer he is that he knows precisely what is right and what is wrong. All human progress, even in morals, has been the work of men who have doubted the current moral values, not of men who have whooped them up and tried to enforce them. The truly civilized man is always skeptical and tolerant.

Social progress means a checking of the cosmic process at every step and the substitution for it of another, which may be called the ethical process; the end of which is not the survival of those who may happen to be the fittest, in respect of the whole of the conditions which obtain, but of those who are ethically the best.

The foundation for a new era was laid but yesterday. The human was given its first chance to become truly civilised when it took courage to question all things and made 'knowledge and understanding' the foundation upon which to create a more reasonable and sensible society of human beings.

Believing in progress does not mean believing that any progress has yet been made.

… we must regard all the changes which tend toward the uplift and survival of the human race as moral.

… law by itself can only address the symptoms, but education can reach deep into our heart, which is far more effective to set the society on the right course. So, education is the fundamental solution.

I am an advocate of education. It is the panacea for all that ails us in our society.

Transformational politics requires us to challenge the way people think about issues, opening their minds to better possibilities.

What society wants is a new motive, not a new cant.

Nobody has the right to shield any idea as so sacred it can’t be challenged. ... Almost all human progress is driven by people who stood up and said ‘I disagree’ with this idea that society at the time considered to be the most precious.’

All art is based on nonconformity ... Without nonconformity we would have had no Bill of Rights or Magna Carta, no public education system, no nation upon this continent, no continent, no science at all, no philosophy, and considerably fewer religions.

When any prevailing prejudice is attacked, the wise will consider, and leave the narrow-minded to rail with thoughtless vehemence at innovation.

Education will not cure all the problems of society, but without it no cure for any problem is possible.

It is only because the majority opinion will always be opposed by some that our knowledge and understanding progress... it is always from a minority acting in ways different from what the majority would prescribe that the majority in the end learns to do better.

By the time any view becomes a majority view, it is no longer the best view: somebody will already have advanced beyond the point which the majority have reached.

When men and women think, the first step to progress is taken.

As soon as an idea is accepted it is time to reject it.

I've always wanted to make the world a more rational place. I'm still working on it.

Every Christian church has tried to impose a code of morals of some kind for which it has claimed divine sanction. As these codes have always been opposed to those of the gospels a loophole has been left for moral progress such as hardly exists in other religions.

The atheist realizes that there must not only be an acceptance of his right to hold his opinion, but that ultimately his is the job to turn his culture from religion, to eliminate those irrational ideas which have held the human race in intellectual slavery.

Only when you question does society move or advance at all.

The measure of progress of civilization is the progress of the people.

Progress is not made by pulling off a series of stunts. Each step has to be regulated. A man cannot expect to progress without thinking.

In a complex universe, in a society undergoing unprecedented change, how can we find the truth if we are not willing to question everything and to give a fair hearing to everything?

Civilization is a disease which is almost invariably fatal.