All [zoos] actually offer to the public in return for the taxes spent upon them is a form of idle and witless amusement, compared to which a visit to a penitentiary, or even to a State legislature in session, is informing, stimulating and ennobling.
Interpretation
Mencken critiques zoos as mere superficial entertainment compared to more enriching experiences.
H. L. Mencken's quote suggests that zoos provide only mindless amusement to visitors, which pales in comparison to the educational and stimulating experiences offered by places like penitentiaries or state legislatures. He points out that while zoos are funded by taxpayers and may seem entertaining, they do not contribute to the intellectual or moral elevation of society in the same way that more serious institutions can.
In practice
During a discussion on the importance of educational institutions, one might quote Mencken to emphasize the value of intellectual experiences over mere entertainment.
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'm not sure I understand how responsibility for our choices makes sense if they are not determined.
To measure the man, measure his heart.
We live in the best of all possible worlds
I am a feminist, and what that means to me is much the same as the meaning of the fact that I am Black: it means that I must undertake to love myself and to respect myself as though my very life depends upon self-love and self-respect.
To be a man, to have been born without knowing it or wanting it, to be thrown into the ocean of existence, to be obliged to swim, to exist; to have an identity; to resist the pressure and shocks from the outside and the unforeseen and unforeseeable acts - one's own and those of others - which so often exceed one's capacities? And what is more, to endure one's own thoughts about all this: in a word, to be human.
Yes, I know it. In the darkness of my dark beating heart, I know. He'd have loved it alright. You see? Even Death Has A Heart.
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