Upton Sinclair on America

Man is an evasive beast, given to cultivating strange notions about himself.

I intend to do what little one man can do to awaken the public conscience, and in the meantime I am not frightened by your menaces.

Let us redeem our great words from base uses. Let that no longer call itself Love, which knows that it is not free!

To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.

Theodore Roosevelt1858–1919Kansas City Star (7 May 1918)

• Politics

Americans can always be counted on to do the right thing…after they have exhausted all other possibilities.

Winston Churchill1874–1965

No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.

H. L. Mencken1880–1956‘Notes On Journalism’ in the Chicago Tribune (19 September 1926)