I detest converts almost as much as I do missionaries.
Interpretation
The quote expresses disdain for those who aggressively promote beliefs or persuade others to convert to their perspective.
H. L. Mencken highlights a critical view of both converts and missionaries, suggesting that he finds both groups tedious and overly zealous in their efforts to spread their beliefs. This reflects a broader skepticism about the authenticity of converted beliefs and the motives of those who seek to influence others to adopt their views.
In practice
During a debate on religious conversion, this quote could serve as a strong opener to express skepticism.
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.
Unnecessary possessions are unnecessary burdens. If you have them, you have to take care of them! There is great freedom in simplicity of living. It is those who have enough but not too much who are the happiest.
. . . we should be men first, and subjects afterward.
There's man all over for you, blaming on his boots the fault of his feet.
Ethical axioms are found and tested not very differently from the axioms of science. Truth is what stands the test of experience.
Society was cut in two: those who had nothing united in common envy; those who had anything united in common terror.
Precision, speed, unambiguity, knowledge of files, continuity, discretion, unity, strict subordination, reduction of friction and of material and personal costs - these are raised to the optimum point in the strictly bureaucratic administration.
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