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A man full of faith is simply one who has lost the capacity for clear and realistic thought.
H. L. Mencken
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Interpretation

What this quote means

Faith can sometimes cloud rational thinking and clear judgment.

H. L. Mencken suggests that an individual who is entirely full of faith may overlook practical considerations and logical reasoning. This perspective implies a potential conflict between having unwavering faith and maintaining a realistic understanding of the world, indicating that blind faith can lead to a detachment from reality.

Themes

FaithThoughtRationalityRealismJudgment

In practice

Example use cases

Discussing the role of faith in personal decision-making during a debate.

More from H. L. Mencken

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.
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The cure for the evils of democracy is more democracy.
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It is my conviction that no normal man ever fell in love, within the ordinary meaning of the term, after the age of thirty.
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Quote by H. L. Mencken | QuoteProject