We are here and it is now. Further than that, all human knowledge is moonshine.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the importance of the present moment while questioning the validity of knowledge beyond it.
H. L. Mencken's quote suggests that the only certainty we have is our existence in the present moment, as everything beyond that is uncertain and potentially misleading. It critiques the value we place on accumulated knowledge and posits that true understanding can only be found in the here and now, highlighting a philosophical inquiry into the nature of existence and perception.
In practice
In a meditation workshop, a facilitator might use this quote to encourage participants to focus on their breath and the present moment.
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.
Silence emerges from the sound of rain and spreads in a crescendo of gray monotony over the narrow street I contemplate. Iβm sleeping while awake, standing by the window, leaning against it as against everything. I search in myself for the sensations I feel before these falling threads of darkly luminous water that stand out from the grimy building facades and especially from the open windows. And I donβt know what I feel or what I want to feel. I donβt know what to think or where I am.
Man's deliberate destruction of his own habitat -- planet Earth -- could serve as a mighty theme for a mighty book worthy of a modern Melville or Tolstoy. But our best fictioneers confine themselves to domestic drama -- soap opera with literary trimmings.
Life is a video game. No matter how good you get, you are always zapped in the end.
It is in vain to hope to guard against events too mighty for human foresight or precaution, and it would be idle to object to a government because it could not perform impossibilities.
To know what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty... this knowledge, this feeling is at the center of true religiousness.
Environmental degradation, overpopulation, refugees, narcotics, terrorism, world crime movements, and organized crime are worldwide problems that don't stop at a nation's borders.
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