Men become civilized, not in proportion to their willingness to believe, but in their readiness to doubt.
Interpretation
Civilization grows from questioning rather than blind belief.
H. L. Mencken's quote underscores the importance of skepticism and critical thinking in the development of civilization. Rather than simply accepting ideas and beliefs without question, he suggests that a willingness to doubt and interrogate these beliefs leads to a more civilized and enlightened society.
In practice
In a discussion about the importance of science, one might quote Mencken to highlight the need for 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.
The propitious smiles of Heaven, can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right, which Heaven itself has ordained...
Violence is man re-creating himself.
Life's errors cry for the merciful beauty that can modulate their isolation into a harmony with the whole.
If you're in favour of any policy - reform, revolution, stability, regression, whatever - if you're at least minimally moral, it's because you think it's somehow good for people. And good for people means conforming to their fundamental nature.
No rational argument will have a rational effect on a man who does not want to adopt a rational attitude.
The years ahead will be great ones for our country, for the cause of freedom and the spread of civilization. The West will not contain Communism, it will transcend Communism. We will not bother to denounce it, we'll dismiss it as a sad, bizarre chapter in human history whose last pages are even now being written.
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