“Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance. 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 the plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby.”
More from H. L. Mencken
“Truth would quickly cease to be stranger than fiction, once we got as used to it.”
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“Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it…”
“Penetrating so many secrets, we cease to believe in the unknowable. But there it sits…”