A man always blames the woman who fools him. In the same way he blames the door he walks into in the dark.
Interpretation
Men often shift blame onto women when they are deceived, similar to how they blame objects like doors in the dark.
This quote reflects the tendency of individuals, particularly men, to externalize responsibility for their misfortunes or mistakes. H. L. Mencken draws a parallel between blaming a woman for being fooled and blaming a door in the dark for causing an accident, suggesting that it is easier for individuals to point the finger at others rather than reflect on their own actions or decisions that led to the situation.
In practice
In a discussion about accountability in relationships, I could use this quote to illustrate how people often deflect blame.
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 never meant to be a sexual object for anyone but my husband. I never thought a picture of my body would be tacked up in menβs bathrooms. I hate men looking at me and thinking what they think. And I know what they think. They write and tell me.
Before, they had never found themselves broken together. Usually, it was one needing the other but not both needing each other, and so there had been a way, by touching, to borrow from the stronger one's strength.
While we celebrate our diversity, what surprises me time and time again as I travel around the constituency is that we are far more united and have far more in common with each other than things that divide us.
The fallen angel becomes a malignant devil. Yet even that enemy of God and man had friends and associates in his desolation; I am alone.
I think people want to get married to end their emotional uncertainty. In a way, they want to end powerful feelings, or certainly the negative ones.
I imagined the hard things that pulled us apart _x000D_ _x000D_ Will never again, sir, tear us from each other's hearts.
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