Quote

Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public.

H. L. Mencken

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

H. L. Mencken
Age: 75 †
Born: 1880
Born: September 12
Died: 1956
Died: January 29
Autobiographer
Essayist
Historian
Journalist
Linguist
Literary Critic
Satirist
Social Critic
Writer
Baltimore
Maryland
Henry Louis Mencken
Went
Underestimate
Public
Witty
Politics
Humorous
American
Broke
Funny
Laughter
History
Taste
Ever
Nobody
Humor
Underestimating

More quotes by H. L. Mencken

Image
All great religions, in order to escape absurdity, have to admit a dilution of agnosticism. It is only the savage, whether of the African bush or the American gospel tent, who pretends to know the will and intent of God exactly and completely.
H. L. Mencken
Image
Some time ago a publisher told me that there are four kinds of books that seldom, if ever, lose money in the United States--first,murder stories secondly, novels in which the heroine is forcibly overcome by the hero thirdly, volumes on spiritualism, occultism and other such claptrap, and fourthly, books on Lincoln.
H. L. Mencken
Image
A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin.
H. L. Mencken
Image
The idea that the sole aim of punishment is to prevent crime is obviously grounded upon the theory that crime can be prevented, which is almost as dubious as the notion that poverty can be prevented.
H. L. Mencken
Image
Government today is growing too strong to be safe. There are no longer any citizens in the world there are only subjects. They work day in and day out for their masters they are bound to die for their masters at call. Out of this working and dying they tend to get less and less.
H. L. Mencken
Image
Every complex problem has a simple solution that doesn't work.
H. L. Mencken
Image
Have you ever watched a crab on the shore crawling backward in search of the Atlantic Ocean, and missing? That's the way the mind of man operates.
H. L. Mencken
Image
Love begins like a triolet and ends like a college yell.
H. L. Mencken
Image
[A formula for answering controversial letters -- without even reading the letters:] Dear Sir (or Madame): You may be right.
H. L. Mencken
Image
The American people, I am convinced, really detest free speech. At the slightest alarm they are ready and eager to put it down.
H. L. Mencken
Image
The war on privilege will never end. Its next grat campaign will be against the special privileges of the underprivileged.
H. L. Mencken
Image
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'.
H. L. Mencken
Image
If women believed in their husbands they would be a good deal happier and also a good deal more foolish.
H. L. Mencken
Image
To the best of my knowledge and belief, the average American newspaper, even of the so-called better sort, is not only quite as bad as Upton Sinclair says it is, but 10 times worse
H. L. Mencken
Image
I'm ombibulous. I drink every known alcoholic drink and enjoy them all.
H. L. Mencken
Image
One horse-laugh is worth ten-thousand syllogisms.
H. L. Mencken
Image
The capacity of human beings to bore one another seems to be vastly greater than that of any other animal. Some of their most esteemed inventions have no other apparent purpose - for example, the dinner party of more than two, the epic poem, and the science of metaphysics.
H. L. Mencken
Image
The other day a dog peed on me. A bad sign.
H. L. Mencken
Image
No married man is genuinely happy if he has to drink worse whisky than he used to drink when he was single.
H. L. Mencken
Image
But I wonder where we will land if trial judges begin deciding that the fact that a man has committed an atrocious crime is proof sufficient that he is not responsible for his acts.
H. L. Mencken