H. L. Mencken Quotes About Values

• 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.

  H. L. Mencken

  Inspirational, Men, Progress

  H.L. Mencken (2013). “Minority Report”, p.416, Knopf

• What men value in this world is not rights but privileges.

  H. L. Mencken

  Leadership, Men, Rights

  H.L. Mencken (2013). “Minority Report”, p.34, Knopf

• For every problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.

  H. L. Mencken

  Freedom, Simple, Ethics

• Equality before the law is probably forever unattainable. It is a noble ideal, but it can never be realized, for what men value in this world is not rights but privileges.

  H. L. Mencken

  Men, Rights, Law

• The chief value of money lies in the fact that one lives in a world in which it is overestimated.

  H. L. Mencken

  Funny, Inspiring, Appreciation

  H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.616, Vintage

• Liberty is of small value to the lower third of humanity. They greatly prefer security, which means protection by some class above them. They are always in favor of despots who promise to feed them. The only liberty an inferior man really cherishes is the liberty to quit work, stretch out in the sun, and scratch himself.

  H. L. Mencken

  Mean, Men, Class

  H.L. Mencken (2013). “Minority Report”, p.250, Knopf

• The idea that leisure is of value in itself is only conditionally true. The average man simply spends his leisure as a dog spends it. His recreations are all puerile, and the time supposed to benefit him really only stupefies him.

  H. L. Mencken

  Dog, Men, Average

  H.L. Mencken (2013). “Minority Report”, p.86, Knopf

• 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.

  H. L. Mencken

  Teacher, Determination, School

  H. L. Mencken (2009). “Prejudices: Third Series”, p.260, Cosimo, Inc.

• The truth is that the scientific value of Polar exploration is greatly exaggerated. The thing that takes men on such hazardous trips is really not any thirst for knowledge, but simply a yearning for adventure. ... A Polar explorer always talks grandly of sacrificing his fingers and toes to science. It is an amiable pretention, but there is no need to take it seriously.

  H. L. Mencken

  Adventure, Sacrifice, Men

• 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.

  H. L. Mencken

  Men, Progress, Society

  H.L. Mencken (2013). “Minority Report”, p.416, Knopf

• The value the world sets upon motives is often grossly unjust and inaccurate.

  H. L. Mencken

  World, Unjust, Motive

  H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.12, Vintage

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