No one in this world, so far as I know — and I have researched the records for years, and employed agents to help me — has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby.
H. L. Mencken (1880-1956) American writer and journalist [Henry Lewis Mencken]
Notes on Journalism, Chicago Tribune (19 Sep 1926)
Popularly, "Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people."
Please fix the typo. ” Nor has anyone ever…” (not “nyhone”)
Thanks for the spot, Sara. Done.
The newspapers chronicle with degrading avidity the sins of the second-rate, and with the conscientiousness of the illiterate give us accurate and prosaic details of the doings of people of absolutely no interest whatsoever.”
Oscar Wilde, In Conversation