What men value in this world is not rights but privileges.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes that people often prioritize special benefits over their basic rights.
H. L. Mencken's quote suggests that in society, individuals tend to value privileges—special advantages or entitlements—more than their fundamental rights, which are meant to be guaranteed for all. This implies a critical view of human nature and societal values, where the pursuit of personal benefits overshadows the importance of universal justice and equality.
In practice
In a discussion about social justice, this quote can illustrate how privileges can sometimes overshadow the recognition of basic rights.
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 white people in the United States have benefited from a white supremacy. But does that mean that a white person should be viewed badly because they turn against a white supremacist policy? Just because you've benefited from something shouldn't disable you from repudiating it.
A screaming comes across the sky. It has happened before, but there is nothing to compare it to now.
Human beings, all over the earth, have this curious idea that they ought to believe in a certain way, and can't really get rid of it.
Non-Christians seem to think that the Incarnation implies some particular merit or excellence in humanity. But of course it implies just the reverse: a particular demerit and depravity. No creature that deserved Redemption would need to be redeemed. They that are whole need not the physician. Christ died for men precisely because men are not worth dying for; to make them worth it.
17. The self ended and the world began. They were of equal size, commensurate, one mirrored the other. 18. The riddle was: why couldn't we live in the mind. The answer was: the barrier of the earth intervened.
Political freedom cannot exist without economic freedom; a free mind and a free market are corollaries.
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