Men become civilized, not in proportion to their willingness to believe, but in their readiness to doubt.
Interpretation
Civilization grows from questioning rather than blind belief.
H. L. Mencken's quote underscores the importance of skepticism and critical thinking in the development of civilization. Rather than simply accepting ideas and beliefs without question, he suggests that a willingness to doubt and interrogate these beliefs leads to a more civilized and enlightened society.
In practice
In a discussion about the importance of science, one might quote Mencken to highlight the need for skepticism.
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.
All voting is a sort of gaming, like checkers or backgammon, with a slight moral tinge to it, a playing with right and wrong.
The market is not an invention of capitalism. It has existed for centuries. It is an invention of civilization.
Not one of them who took up in his youth with this opinion that there are no gods ever continued until old age faithful to his conviction.
I do not think of God theistically, that is, as a being, supernatural in power, who dwells beyond the limits of my world. I rather experience God as the source of life willing me to live fully, the source of love calling me to love wastefully and to borrow a phrase from the theologian, Paul Tillich, as the Ground of being, calling me to be all that I can be.
For there is but one essential justice which cements society, and one law which establishes this justice. This law is right reason, which is the true rule of all commandments and prohibitions. Whoever neglects this law, whether written or unwritten, is necessarily unjust and wicked.
In this treacherous world Nothing is the truth nor a lie. Everything depends on the color Of the crystal through which one sees it
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