The objection to Puritans is not that they try to make us think as they do, but that they try to make us do as they think.
Interpretation
This quote criticizes the Puritans for imposing their beliefs on others, advocating for freedom of thought over forced action.
H. L. Mencken's quote highlights the fundamental issue with groups like the Puritans who do not merely seek to influence our thoughts but rather aim to dictate our actions based on their own beliefs. It underscores the importance of individual freedom, suggesting that true intellectual engagement should allow people to think independently rather than conform to the prescribed actions of a particular ideology or group.
In practice
In a debate about personal freedom, one might use this quote to illustrate the importance of independent thought.
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.
Zionism demands a publicly recognized and legally secured homeland in Palestine for the Jewish people. This platform is unchangeable.
We have no need of other worlds. We need mirrors. We don't know what to do with other worlds. A single world, our own, suffices us; but we can't accept it for what it is.
We are the prisoners of history. Or are we?
A general problem with much of Western theology in my view is that the god portrayed is too small. It is a god of a tiny world and not a god of a galaxy much less of a universe.
The will of God is always a bigger thing than we bargain for.
Man is able to do what he is unable to imagine. His head trails a wake through the galaxy of the absurd.
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