In the United States, doing good has come to be, like patriotism, a favorite device of persons with something to sell.
Interpretation
Mencken critiques the commercialization of altruism and patriotism in American society.
In this quote, H. L. Mencken observes that the act of doing good, much like expressing patriotism, has become a tool exploited by individuals seeking to promote their own interests or agendas. He suggests that what is often presented as genuine goodwill may actually be a superficial facade used to gain favor, sell products, or manipulate public perception.
In practice
During a discussion on the influence of marketing in social initiatives, this quote can highlight the misconception that altruism is always selfless.
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 things are poisons, for there is nothing without poisonous qualities. It is only the dose which makes a thing poison.
The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.
Like any place in Reality, the Street is subject to development. Developers can build their own small streets feeding off of the main one. They can build buildings, parks, signs, as well as things that do not exist in Reality, such as vast hovering overhead light shows and special neighborhoods where the rules of three-dimensional spacetime are ignored.
[A]nother important difference between tourist and traveler is that the former accepts his own civilization without question; not so the traveler, who compares it with the others, and rejects those elements he finds not to his liking.
No opinion has ever been too errant to become a creed.
All crime is a kind of disease and should be treated as such.
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