P.T. Barnum

Without publicity a terrible thing happens: nothing.

There is a fool born every minute.

Nothing draws a crowd quite like a crowd.

My inexperienced friend, take it for granted that they all tell the truth -- about each other! -- and then transact your business to the best of your ability on your own judgment.

When I was born, all the modesty I had was in my head; I took it out, looked at it, laughed, and threw it away.

No one ever made a difference by being like everyone else.

Politeness is the art of thinking twice before speaking once.

Laughter is the best medicine.

A little reflection will show that humbug is an astonishingly wide-spread phenomenon — in fact almost universal.

Need I explain to my own beloved countrymen that there is humbug in politics? Does anybody go into a political campaign without it?

Not at all, my ardent and inquiring friends, there is a scientific humbug just as large as any other. We have all heard of the Moon Hoax. Do none of you remember the Hydrarchos Sillimannii, that awful Alabama snake?

Comfort is the enemy of progress.

The bigger the humbug, the better the people will like it.

I don't believe in duping the public, but I believe in first attracting and then pleasing them.

Clergymen sometimes take offense when I place my Museum next door to their churches; but really, a lecture on natural history from my platform is quite as instructive as a sermon from their pulpits.

I have no desire to be considered a humbug, although I have been called one often enough.

The American people like to be humbugged.

Advertising is like learning—a little is a dangerous thing.

I have often been asked what was the secret of my success, and I have invariably replied, 'I always had the sense to know I knew nothing.'

There's a sucker born every minute, but remember—I'm not one of them.