Daily Inspiration Quote by Franklin P. Adams

A perfectly rolled little grenade: Adams takes a homespun compliment to American abundance ("plenty of good five cent cigars") and then blows it up with the price tag. The line works because it pretends to be reassurance before revealing itself as an indictment. In eight words, the market turns a democratic pleasure into a private luxury.

The joke is built on a bait-and-switch between nominal value and lived reality. "Five cent cigar" isn’t just a product; it’s a cultural shorthand for the everyday man’s modest indulgence, the small treat you can justify after work. By insisting those cigars exist "in the country", Adams flatters the myth of plenty, then exposes how quickly that myth collapses when the register opens. The punchline ("they cost a quarter") is funny because it’s blunt, and because it treats the economy like a magician: the good stuff is always just out of reach, not because it’s rare, but because the rules of access have changed.

As a journalist and wit working in an era that saw rapid commercialization, rising consumer expectations, and periodic bouts of inflation and speculation, Adams is needling the distance between advertised prosperity and actual purchasing power. The subtext is less about cigars than about a society where the labels of affordability linger long after affordability itself has vanished. It’s a one-liner version of wage stagnation before the phrase existed: the country still makes "five cent" pleasures; the economy has simply moved the goalposts.