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For every problem, there is a solution that is simple, elegant, and wrong.
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What it means
Our interpretation.
Mencken's jab is that every hard problem draws a tidy answer, and the tidiness is exactly what makes it attractive and false. It is the standard rebuke to quick fixes in politics, economics and software alike. The "simple, elegant" wording is the form that circulates, but what he actually wrote was "neat, plausible", a sharper jab at answers that merely sound reasonable.
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In context
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Mencken wrote the thought in "The Divine Afflatus", printed in the New York Evening Mail on 16 November 1917, and it was reprinted in Prejudices: Second Series (1920) and A Mencken Chrestomathy (1949). His own wording is that for every human problem there is always a well-known solution, and that it is "neat, plausible, and wrong". The popular "simple, elegant, and wrong" is a later rewording: Wikiquote notes that the closing phrase is widely paraphrased and lists variants such as "clear, simple, and wrong" as misquotations.
Sources (1)
- Wikiquote: H. L. MenckenSourced section, 'The Divine Afflatus' entryReference checked
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