I am a strict monogamist: it is twenty years since I last went to bed with two women at once, and then I was in my cups and not myself.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes a commitment to monogamy and acknowledges past mistakes influenced by alcohol.
H. L. Mencken's quote reflects a personal commitment to monogamy, indicating that he has refrained from relationships with multiple partners simultaneously for two decades. He admits that his only deviation from this principle occurred when he was under the influence of alcohol, suggesting a belief that true monogamy requires clarity and self-control.
In practice
In discussing the importance of commitment in relationships.
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 parent-child relationship in the home usually reflects the objective cultural conditions of the surrounding social structure. If the conditions which penetrate the home are authoritarian, rigid, and dominating, the home will increase the climate of oppression. As these authoritarian relations between parents and children intensify, children in their infancy increasingly internalize the paternal authority.
The essence of being human is that one does not seek perfection, that one is sometimes willing to commit sins for the sake of loyalty, that one does not push asceticism to the point where it makes friendly intercourse impossible, and that one is prepared in the end to be defeated and broken up by life, which is the inevitable price of fastening one's love upon other human individuals.
Relationships, not achievements or the acquisition of things, are what matters most in life.
My mother and our pastor always said you have to pray for your enemies and people who do you wrong, and that's what I did.
When you stay in your room and rage or sneer or shrug your shoulders, as I did for many years, the world and its problems are impossibly daunting. But when you go out and put yourself in real relation to real people, or even just real animals, thereβs a very real danger that you might end up loving some of them. And who knows what might happen to you then?
What I do on court is great, but what really matters is what happens off court, the people who you affect.
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