As quoted in Letters of H. L. Mencken (1961) edited by Guy J. Forgue, p. xiii
1940s–present
“To say that man has already achieved the ultimate and absolute truth is like a tribal taboo which says that a given river may never be crossed because the witch doctor proves beyond all reason that there is only chaos beyond.
The most puzzling of all contradictory concepts given me is the human will to set up such arbitrary limits to his comprehension.”
Source: They'd Rather Be Right (1954), p. 109.
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Mark Clifton 23
American writer 1906–1963Related quotes
Systematic Theology (1951–63)
Context: Man is infinitely concerned about the infinity to which he belongs, from which he is separated, and for which he is longing. Man is totally concerned about the totality which is his true being and which is disrupted in time and space. Man is unconditionally concerned about that which conditions his being beyond all the conditions in him and around him. Man is ultimately concerned about that which determines his ultimate destiny beyond all preliminary necessities and accidents.
maiden speech to the House of Lords http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200506/ldhansrd/vo050720/text/50720-23.htm, 20 July 2005; quoted by United Kingdom Parliament World Wide Web Service.
Love is not a feeling ~ The Article (1995)
Context: Enlightenment is enlightenment. And that's that. It's an unalterable, unwavering state of knowledge and being beyond doubt, a completion every moment by grace of the Most High, the unspeakable one, God. That's the ultimate; the absolute being beyond any description. But the ultimate, the enlightenment of man, must translate into his living life. And to me and my teaching that means an enlightened man is liberated from unhappiness. Being and living free of unhappiness is the natural and simple state of all life on earth - except man. He has been misled away from it by spiritual lures and glamour and the result is the conflict and pain, the fluctuating unhappiness, of his short life.
Source: The Limits of State Action (1792), Ch. 2
“All we know of the truth is that the absolute truth, such as it is, is beyond our reach.”
De Docta Ignorantia (On Learned Ignorance) (1440)
The Cosmos as a Poem (2010)
Source: Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics (1994), p. 37.