H. L. Mencken Quotes
No one in this world, so far as I know - and I have searched the records for years, and employed agents to help me - has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people.
Mencken, H. L. "Notes on Journalism." Chicago Tribune, 19 Sept. 1926.
See Eddie Bernice Johnson {605259} & Otis Singletary {585931} for similar views and John Stuart Mill {607508} for an earlier expression. The earliest expression of the idea can be found in the Bhagavad Gita {594723}
This appears to be the first English use of the “man in the street” expression that Ralph Waldo Emerson made more famous in his 1866 phrase: “The man in the street does not know a star in the sky.” Politicians have been using it ever since.
Henry Louis Mencken was an American journalist, essayist, satirist, cultural critic, and scholar of American English. He commented widely on the social scene, literature, music, prominent politicians, and contemporary movements. His satirical reporting on the Scopes Trial, which he dubbed the "Monkey Trial," also gained him attention.
