P.T. Barnum — "No man ever went broke overestimating the ignorance of the American public."
No man ever went broke overestimating the ignorance of the American public.
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More from P.T. Barnum
"The plan of 'counting the chickens before they are hatched' is an error of ancient date, but it does not seem to improve by age."
"You know I had rather be laughed at than not to be noticed at all."
"Keep your eyes open, and your mouth shut."
"Need I explain to my own beloved countrymen that there is humbug in politics? Does anybody go into a political campaign without it?"
"Science is another important field of human effort... Not at all, my ardent and inquiring friends, there is a scientific humbug just as large as any other."
About P.T. Barnum (1810-1891)
American showman and Barnum & Bailey Circus co-founder, whose autobiography popularized Gilded Age commercial spectacle. Closely associated with James Anthony Bailey (his circus business partner). For an intellectual contrast, see Mark Twain, American author and Gilded Age satirist — Twain's The Gilded Age (1873, with Charles Dudley Warner) named the entire era of corrupt commercial spectacle Barnum embodied — Twain's later writing repeatedly attacked Barnum-style hucksterism as the era's moral disease.