A Quote by H. L. Mencken

The truly civilized man is always skeptical and tolerant, in this field as in all others. His culture is based on 'I am not too sure'.

H. L. Mencken

Quote Topics

Always Am Based Civilized Culture Field His Man Others Skeptical Sure Tolerant Too Truly

Quote Author

H. L. Mencken
American - Writer
September 12, 1880 - January 29, 1956

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

Civilized man longs for the illusion of barbarism. Either his culture fulfills this need by adopting its outer trappings, or he will be seduced by his first contact with a culture that does.

C.S. Friedman

Mine was, as it were, the connecting link between wild and cultivated fields; as some states are civilized, and others half-civilized, and others savage or barbarous, so my field was, though not in a bad sense, a half-cultivated field. They were beans cheerfully returning to their wild and primitive state that I cultivated, and my hoe played the Ranz des Vaches for them.

Henry David Thoreau

Good work is no done by "humble" men. It is one of the first duties of a professor, for example, in any subject, to exaggerate a little both the importance of his subject and his own importance in it. A man who is always asking "Is what I do worth while?" and "Am I the right person to do it?" will always be ineffective himself and a discouragement to others. He must shut his eyes a little and think a little more of his subject and himself than they deserve. This is not too difficult: it is harder not to make his subject and himself ridiculous by shutting his eyes too tightly.

G. H. Hardy

The civilized man has a moral obligation to be skeptical, to demand the credentials of all statements that claim to be facts.

Bergen Evans

Clearly, in every civilized culture since recorded history, marriage is always between a man and a woman. And the fact that we're trying to change it is very serious, because the family is the foundational institution in our culture.

Jerry Falwell

Tolerance sounds like a virtue, and at times it may be. [But should] a parent be tolerant of behavior that is harming a child? Or the police be tolerant of criminals who prey upon others? Should doctors be tolerant of disease, or public schoolteachers tolerant of any answer on an exam, no matter how wrong?

Dave Hunt

When a man declares to you: "I am sure of my wife," it means that he is sure of his wife. But when a woman declares to you: "I am sure of my husband," it nearly always means that she is sure of herself.

Francis de Croisset

The civilized man has a moral obligation to be skeptical. . . . Any man who for one moment abandons or suspends the questioning spirit has for that moment betrayed humanity.

Bergen Evans

The most dangerous kind of man is not the one who spent his youth shoving others around. That kind of man gets lazy, and is often too content with his life to be truly dangerous. The man who spent his youth being shoved around, however … When that man gets a little power and authority, he often uses it to become a tyrant on par with the worst warlords in history.

Brandon Sanderson

I was listening," the king said, aggrieved. "I closed my eyes to listen better." "What did you hear?" "I'm not sure," he said." That's why I was listening so closely. I may have to ask the baron to repeat some parts of his report on his grain tax." "I am sure you can arrange an appointment." "I am sure I can too.

Megan Whalen Turner

I think it was there before, but - because of social media, too - there are these people who fancy themselves as tolerant, and don't see the hypocrisy and double standard of how they're not tolerant at all, and they're just strident and they don't listen. There's no dialogue anymore. That's maybe, truly, the worst part of Trump's legacy is just people yelling at each other.

David Cross

I will miss my pal Dominick Dunne. I am sure his funeral will be just the sort of event he would have loved. Based on who will be there, I am sure he wishes he could have been there to cover it.

Dan Abrams

As a man develops, he places a greater value upon his own rights. Liberty becomes a grander and diviner thing. As he values his own rights he begins to value the rights of others. And when all men give to all others all the rights they claim for themselves, this world will be civilized.