I never lecture, not because I am shy or a bad speaker, but simply because I detest the sort of people who go to lectures and don't want to meet them.
Interpretation
The quote reflects disdain for those who attend lectures without a genuine interest in engagement.
In this quote, H. L. Mencken expresses his aversion to lecturing, suggesting that he finds more value in genuine discourse than in speaking to an audience that may not be interested in meaningful interaction. His dislike of the 'sort of people' who attend lectures without the desire to engage indicates a broader critique of passive learning and the disconnect between speakers and their audience.
In practice
In a speech about public speaking, one might use this quote to illustrate the importance of genuine engagement with the audience.
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.
Teachers who offer you the ultimate answers do not possess the ultimate answers, for if they did, they would know that the ultimate answers cannot be given, they can only be received.
Reading is one of the true pleasures of life. In our age of mass culture, when so much that we encounter is abridged,adapted, adulterated, shredded, and boiled down, it is mind-easing and mind-inspiring to sit down privately with a congenial book.
Education remains the key to both economic and political empowerment.
There's so much talk of representation in politics and entertainment - it's everywhere - but I didn't realize representation was important until really my senior year of high school.
What nobler employment, or more valuable to the state, than that of the man who instructs the rising generation?
The advertisements in a newspaper are more full knowledge in respect to what is going on in a state or community than the editorial columns are.
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