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.
I believe unconditionally in the ability of people to respond when they are told the truth. We need to be taught to study rather than believe, to inquire rather than to affirm.
The more you read, the more you will write. The better the stuff you read, the better the stuff you will write.
If every parent understood the huge educational benefits and intense happiness brought about by reading aloud to their children, and if every parent- and every adult caring for a child-read aloud a minimum of three stories a day to the children in our lives, we could probably wipe out illiteracy within one generation.
As a kid I would get my parents to drop me off at my local library on their way to work during the summer holidays and I would walk home at night. For several years I read the children's library until I finished the children's library. Then I moved into the adult library and slowly worked my way through them.
My generation's parents told their children, "Become an accountant, a lawyer, or an engineer; that will give you a solid foothold in the middle class." But these jobs are now being sent overseas. So in order to make it today, you have to do work that's hard to outsource, hard to automate.
It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.
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