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H. L. Mencken Quotes about Knowledge

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[The] erroneous assumption is to the effect that the aim of public education is to fill the young of the species with knowledge and awaken their intelligence, and so make them fit to discharge the duties of citizenship

[The] erroneous assumption is to the effect that the aim of public education is to fill the young of the species with knowledge and awaken their intelligence, and so make them fit to discharge the duties of citizenship in an enlightened and independent manner. Nothing could be further from the truth. The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all; it is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardised citizenry, to put down dissent and originality.

H. L. Mencken
Knowledge, Independent, Science

We are here and it is now. Further than that, all human knowledge is moonshine.

H. L. Mencken
Inspirational, Drinking, Knowledge
"A Mencken chrestomathy". Book by Henry Louis Mencken, 1949.

Penetrating so many secrets, we cease to believe in the unknowable. But there it sits nevertheless, calmly licking its chops

H. L. Mencken
Art, Believe, Knowledge
H.L. Mencken (2013). “Minority Report”, p.363, Knopf

The psychologists and the metaphysicians wrangle endlessly over the nature of the thinking process in man, but no matter how violently they differ otherwise they all agree that it has little to do with logic and is not much conditioned by overt facts.

H. L. Mencken
Truth, Learning, Knowledge
H.L. Mencken (2013). “Minority Report”, p.311, Knopf

By profession a biologist, [Thomas Henry Huxley] covered in fact the whole field of the exact sciences, and then bulged through its four fences. Absolutely nothing was uninteresting to him. His curiosity ranged from music to theology and from philosophy to history. He didn't simply know something about everything; he knew a great deal about everything.

H. L. Mencken
Philosophy, Knowledge, Science

Only to often on meeting scientific men, even those of genuine distiction, one finds that they are dull fellows and very stupid. They know one thing to excess; they know nothing else. Pursuing facts too doggedly and unimaginatively, they miss all the charming things that are not facts. ... Too much learning, like too little learning, is an unpleasant and dangerous thing.

H. L. Mencken
Stupid, Knowledge, Science

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