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- 24-Feb-21 - "Mobs and Education," Speech, Twenty-Eighth Congregational Society, Boston (16 Dec 1860) | WIST on “The Boston Mob,” speech, Antislavery Meeting, Boston (21 Oct 1855).
- 22-Feb-21 - Letter (1860) | WIST on Areopagitica: a Speech for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing (1644).
- 21-Feb-21 - "What I Believe," Forum and Century (Oct 1930) | WIST on Memoirs of William Miller, quoted in Life (2 May 1955).
- 21-Feb-21 - "What I Believe," Forum and Century (Oct 1930) | WIST on Letter, unsent (1927).
- 20-Feb-21 - "What I Believe," Forum and Century (Oct 1930) | WIST on Remark (Winter 1927).
- 13-Feb-21 - tweet: the case of anti-cytokine therapy for Covid-19 – Med-stat.info on “The Divine Afflatus,” New York Evening Mail (16 Nov 1917).
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Explanations exist; they have existed for all time; there is always a well-known solution to every human problem neat, plausible, and wrong.
H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) American writer and journalist [Henry Lewis Mencken]
“The Divine Afflatus,” New York Evening Mail (16 Nov 1917)
(Source)
Reprinted in Prejudices: Second Series (1920) and A Mencken Chrestomathy, ch. 25 (1949).
Variants:
- "There is always an easy solution to every human problem -- neat, plausible, and wrong."
- "For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong."
Thank you for your useful site, I read the article “The Divine Afflatus,” on page 6, The Evening Mail (New York, 16 Nov 1917), but could not see the quote “For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.” anywhere in the article 🙂
Hi, NB, thanks for the info. Hmmmm. I don’t have a copy of the source article, but a reprint of Prejudices: Second Series, which includes that essay does have the variant I mention:
That variant seems to be what is included all over the place, now that I look at it, which makes me think that’s the “true” quotation, and someone else mangled it to “simple, neat, and wrong” somewhere along the line.
I will make corrections at my first opportunity. Thanks again!
The second reference is almost correct, at least in the 1921 version of Prejudices: Second Series (available from https://archive.org/stream/prejudices030184mbp#page/n163/mode/2up) the quote is “…there is always a well-known solution to every human problem neat, plausible, and wrong.” (rather than “There is always an easy solution to every human problem — neat, plausible, and wrong.”)
I have updated the quotation entry and the graphic. Thanks, NB!
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