No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public
Meaning: Mass audiences reward simplicity over substance, making mediocrity perpetually profitable.
Origin: A popular condensation of a remark by the journalist H. L. Mencken, who wrote in a September 1926 column on the success of tabloid newspapers that no one "has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people." The tighter wording, and the specific target of the American public, came from later retellings.
More proverbs about Communication
- As you make your bed so you must lie on it. — Your choices about how you arrange your life will directly determine the comfort or disco…
- He who lies long in bed his estate feels it. — Laziness depletes wealth as surely as an idle body consumes resources without producing i…
- You would make me believe the moon is made of green cheese. — Absurd claims require absurd evidence; gullibility has limits even when persuasion is ski…
- The best lie is the worst. — A lie that succeeds too perfectly eventually collapses under its own elaborate contradict…
- Give a dog a bone in his mouth, and you may kick him and he can't bite. — A person preoccupied with satisfying their immediate desires loses the ability to resist…
- Every man as his business lies. — Expertise and judgment develop naturally from close involvement with one's own work and r…
From our idioms
- Ser uña y carne — To be inseparable; the closest of friends.
- Dar gato por liebre — To swindle by passing off something inferior as the real thing.
- Importar un pepino — To not care in the slightest.