Whenever A annoys or injures B on the pretense of saving or improving X, A is a scoundrel.
Interpretation
The quote critiques those who harm others under the guise of doing good.
H. L. Mencken's quote highlights the hypocrisy in human behavior where individuals justify their harmful actions to others by claiming they are acting for the greater good. It underscores the moral dilemma that arises when intentions are masked by a veneer of altruism, suggesting that such justifications often reveal a lack of integrity in the person taking action.
In practice
Using this quote in a discussion about ethics in political decisions.
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.
You can't have intentions without consequences. The question is, who pays for the consequences? Saving fish from drowning. Same thing. Whoβs saved? Whoβs not?
Freedom is the recognition of necessity.
The tragedy of a species becoming unfit for life by over-evolving one ability is not confined to humankind. Thus it is thought, for instance, that certain deer in paleontological times succumbed as they acquired overly-heavy horns. The mutations must be considered blind, they work, are thrown forth, without any contact of interest with their environment. In depressive states, the mind may be seen in the image of such an antler, in all its fantastic splendour pinning its bearer to the ground.
Nothing will change the fact that I cannot produce the least thing without absolute solitude.
The desire to rule is the mother of heresies.
Order is repetition of units._x000D_ Chaos is multiplicity without rhythm.
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