The formula of the argument is simple and familiar: to dispose of a problem all that is necessary is to deny that it exists.
Interpretation
Avoiding a problem by ignoring its existence does not solve it.
H. L. Mencken highlights a common human tendency to deny problems rather than confront them head-on. This quote serves as a reminder that simply ignoring an issue does not make it disappear; rather, it often exacerbates the situation and leads to more significant consequences.
In practice
In a discussion about mental health, this quote can emphasize the importance of acknowledging issues rather than ignoring them.
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.
Fascism is the stage reached after communism has proved an illusion.
White shall not neutralize the black, nor good compensate bad in man, absolve him so; life's business being just the terrible choice.
Monsters exist because they are part of the divine plan, and in the horrible features of those same monsters the power of the creator is revealed.
He reached for his pocket, and found there, only reality
Ridicule is generally made use of to laugh men out of virtue and good sense, by attacking everything praiseworthy in human life.
Those who know the truth are not equal to those who love it Confucius All truth is safe and nothing else is safe, but he who keeps back truth, or withholds it from men, from motives of expediency, is either a coward or a criminal.
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