# Quote — H.L. Mencken, Minority Report

> Moral certainty is always a sign of cultural inferiority. The more uncivilized the man, the surer he is that he knows precisely what is right and what is wrong. All human progress, even in morals, has been the work of men who have doubted the current moral values, not of men who have whooped them up and tried to enforce them. The truly civilized man is always skeptical and tolerant, in this field as in all others. His culture is based on "I am not too sure."

- Author: [H.L. Mencken](https://www.leafyquotes.com/hl-mencken.md)
- Book: [Minority Report](https://www.leafyquotes.com/hl-mencken/minority-report.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/H._L._Mencken#Minority_Report_:_H.L._Mencken's_Notebooks_(1956)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Topics: [morality](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/morality.md), [doubt](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/doubt.md)
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/hl-mencken/minority-report/moral-certainty-is-always

## More from this book

> My old suggestion that public offices be filled by drawing lots, as a jury box is filled, was probably more intelligent than I suspected. It has been criticized on the ground that selecting a man at random would probably produce some extremely bad State governors. [...] But I incline to believe that it would be best to choose members of the Legislature quite at random. No matter how stupid they were, they could not be more stupid than the average legislator under the present system. Certainly, they'd be measurably more honest, taking one with another. Finally, there would be the great advantage that all of them had got their jobs unwillingly, and were eager, not to spin out their sessions endlessly, but to get home as soon as possible.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/hl-mencken/minority-report/my-old-suggestion.md)

Topics: [politics](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/politics.md)

> Government, like any other organism, refuses to acquiesce in its own extinction. This refusal, of course, involves the resistance to any effort to diminish its powers and prerogatives. There has been no organized effort to keep government down since Jefferson's day. Ever since then the American people have been bolstering up its powers and giving it more and more jurisdiction over their affairs. They pay for that folly in increased taxes and diminished liberties. No government as such is ever in favor of the freedom of the individual. It invariably seeks to limit that freedom, if not by overt denial, then by seeking constantly to widen its own functions.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/hl-mencken/minority-report/government-like-any.md)

Topics: [politics](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/politics.md), [power](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/power.md), [freedom](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/freedom.md)

> The kind of man who wants the government to adopt and enforce his ideas is always the kind of man whose ideas are idiotic.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/hl-mencken/minority-report/the-kind-of-man.md)

Topics: [politics](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/politics.md), [stupidity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/stupidity.md)