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.
Totalitarian states killed with impunity and no one was held accountable. That didn't happen in the West.
Money isn't automatically freedom. You need to look carefully at what you're doing to earn the money before you can conclude that you are, in practice, free. This is a cost-benefit analysis we should all perform on our own lives.
Life is simply the reification of the process of living.
We lie in the lap of immense intelligence, which makes us receivers of its truth and organ of its activity. When we discern justice, when we discern truth, we do nothing by ourselves, but allow a passage to its beams. If we ask whence this comes, if we seek to pry into the soul that causes, all philosophy is at fault. Its presence or its absence is all we can affirm.
There are too many accidents that can befall life on a single planet.
I have won important things for myself, but I'm going to destroy them, because I tell myself they have lost their meaning. I know that is not true. I know they are important, and that if I destroy them, I'll be destroying myself, as well.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.