Education Quote by H. L. Mencken

Mencken drops the floor out from under the reader with a grin you can hear. "We are here and it is now" is blunt, almost Zen in its minimalism, but it isn’t spiritual reassurance. It’s a reality check delivered with the impatience of a columnist who has watched too many people dress up their wishes as certainties. Then comes the pivot: "Further than that, all human knowledge is moonshine". The word choice matters. Moonshine isn’t just wrong; it’s intoxicating, homemade, and faintly criminal. Mencken is saying our grand systems - metaphysics, politics, moral crusades, even "expert" consensus - are often crude distillations we sip to feel less frightened by contingency.

The intent is less to abolish knowledge than to puncture its vanity. Mencken wrote in an America thick with boosterism, spiritual fads, and the sanctimony of reform movements, and he made a career out of treating public righteousness like a symptom. This line compresses his broader suspicion: humans aren’t primarily truth-seekers; we’re comfort-seekers with libraries. "Here" and "now" become the only hard coordinates, while everything beyond them slides into narrative, ideology, or self-serving myth.

The subtext is a dare: if the universe offers no guaranteed meanings, stop outsourcing your courage to authorities and abstractions. Mencken’s cynicism isn’t empty; it’s diagnostic. He’s mocking the human need to pretend our beliefs are inevitable, when they’re often just well-lit guesses - convincing until the hangover hits.