Will Rogers
politician, journalist, stage actor, film actor, screenwriter
Read on Wikipedia1879 – 1935
All Quotes by Will Rogers
“Don't gamble; take all your savings and buy some good stock and hold it till it goes up, then sell it. If it don't go up, don't buy it.”
“Don't gamble; take all your savings and buy some good stock and hold it till it goes up, then sell it. If it don't go up, don't buy it.”
“I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a Democrat.”
“Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there.”
“There are three kinds of men. The one that learns by reading. The few who learn by observation. The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence for themselves.”
“Diplomacy is the art of saying 'Nice doggie' until you can find a rock.”
“Make crime pay. Become a lawyer.”
“A fool and his money are soon elected.”
“Things in our country run in spite of government, not by aid of it.”
“The only difference between death and taxes is that death doesn't get worse every time Congress meets.”
“The farmer has to be an optimist or he wouldn't still be a farmer.”
“Everything is funny, as long as it's happening to somebody else.”
“Lettin' the cat outta the bag is a whole lot easier 'n puttin' it back in.”
“It isn't what we don't know that gives us trouble, it's what we know that ain't so.”
“If Stupidity got us into this mess, then why can't it get us out?”
“The worst thing that happens to you may be the best thing for you if you don't let it get the best of you.”
“A man only learns in two ways, one by reading, and the other by association with smarter people.”
“Everything is funny, as long as it's happening to somebody else.”
“People who fly into a rage always make a bad landing.”
“You've got to go out on a limb sometimes because that's where the fruit is.”
“It's a good thing we don't get all the government we pay for.”
“Too many people spend money they haven't earned to buy things they don't want to impress people they don't like.”
“When the Oakies left Oklahoma and moved to California, it raised the I.Q. of both states.”
“The difference between a Republican and a Democrat is the Democrat is a cannibal they have to live off each other, while the Republicans, why, they live off the Democrats.”
“Half our life is spent trying to find something to do with the time we have rushed through life trying to save.”
“Be thankful we're not getting all the government we're paying for.”
“Buy land. They ain't making any more of the stuff.”
“Do the best you can, and don't take life too serious.”
“An ignorant person is one who doesn't know what you have just found out.”
“Get someone else to blow your horn and the sound will carry twice as far.”
“If advertisers spent the same amount of money on improving their products as they do on advertising then they wouldn't have to advertise them.”
“The best way out of a difficulty is through it.”
“This country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session as when the baby gets hold of a hammer.”
“It's not what you pay a man, but what he costs you that counts.”
“Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment.”
“Don't let yesterday use up too much of today.”
“We will never have true civilization until we have learned to recognize the rights of others.”
“Never let yesterday use up too much of today.”
“Ancient Rome declined because it had a Senate, now what's going to happen to us with both a House and a Senate?”
“Worrying is like paying on a debt that may never come due.”
“Advertising is the art of convincing people to spend money they don't have for something they don't need.”
“Be thankful we're not getting all the government we're paying for.”
“I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts.”
“You can't say civilization don't advance... in every war they kill you in a new way.”
“All I know is just what I read in the papers, and that's an alibi for my ignorance.”
“Everything is changing. People are taking their comedians seriously and the politicians as a joke.”
“Everybody is ignorant, only on different subjects.”
“Live in such a way that you would not be ashamed to sell your parrot to the town gossip.”
“People's minds are changed through observation and not through argument.”
“There is nothing so stupid as the educated man if you get him off the thing he was educated in.”
“We can't all be heroes, because somebody has to sit on the curb and applaud when they go by.”
“When ignorance gets started it knows no bounds.”
“Don't gamble; take all your savings and buy some good stock and hold it till it goes up, then sell it. If it don't go up, don't buy it.”
“I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a Democrat.”
“Advertising is the art of convincing people to spend money they don't have for something they don't need.”
“A fool and his money are soon elected.”
“If you ever injected truth into politics you have no politics.”
“Things ain't what they used to be and never were.”
“If you want to be successful, it's just this simple. Know what you are doing. Love what you are doing. And believe in what you are doing.”
“It's not what you pay a man, but what he costs you that counts.”
“The only time people dislike gossip is when you gossip about them.”
“There is no more independence in politics than there is in jail.”
“Politics is applesauce.”
“Things in our country run in spite of government, not by aid of it.”
“Ohio claims they are due a president as they haven't had one since Taft. Look at the United States, they have not had one since Lincoln.”
“We are all here for a spell, get all the good laughs you can.”
“When should a college athlete turn pro? Not until he has earned all he can in college as an amateur.”
“We are all here for a spell, get all the good laughs you can.”
“Being a hero is about the shortest-lived profession on earth.”
“Prohibition is better than no liquor at all.”
“Democrats never agree on anything, that's why they're Democrats. If they agreed with each other, they would be Republicans.”
“This country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session as when the baby gets hold of a hammer.”
“A difference of opinion is what makes horse racing and missionaries.”
“Money and women are the most sought after and the least known about of any two things we have.”
“What the country needs is dirtier fingernails and cleaner minds.”
“Chaotic action is preferable to orderly inaction.”
“There's no trick to being a humorist when you have the whole government working for you.”
“Everything is funny, as long as it's happening to somebody else.”
“It's easy being a humorist when you've got the whole government working for you.”
“America is becoming so educated that ignorance will be a novelty. I will belong to the select few.”
“I never expected to see the day when girls would get sunburned in the places they now do.”
“I read about eight newspapers in a day. When I'm in a town with only one newspaper, I read it eight times.”
“Diplomats are just as essential to starting a war as soldiers are for finishing it... You take diplomacy out of war, and the thing would fall flat in a week.”
“A remark generally hurts in proportion to its truth.”
“People are getting smarter nowadays; they are letting lawyers, instead of their conscience, be their guide.”
“Take the diplomacy out of war and the thing would fall flat in a week.”
“There's only one thing that can kill the movies, and that's education.”
“I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts.”
“Ancient Rome declined because it had a Senate, now what's going to happen to us with both a House and a Senate?”
“I'm not a real movie star. I've still got the same wife I started out with twenty-eight years ago.”
“In Hollywood you can see things at night that are fast enough to be in the Olympics in the day time.”
“If the other fellow sells cheaper than you, it is called dumping. 'Course, if you sell cheaper than him, that's mass production.”
“The time to save is now. When a dog gets a bone, he doesn't go out and make a down payment on a bigger bone. He buries the one he's got.”
“Well, all I know is what I read in the papers.”
“America is a nation that conceives many odd inventions for getting somewhere but it can think of nothing to do once it gets there.”
“Papers say: "Congress is deadlocked and can't act." I think that is the greatest blessing that could befall this country.”
“When you put down the good things you ought to have done, and leave out the bad ones you did do well, that's Memoirs.”
“You know everybody is ignorant, only on different subjects.”
“There ought to be one day - just one - when there is open season on senators.”
“Heroing is one of the shortest-lived professions there is.”
“If advertisers spent the same amount of money on improving their products as they do on advertising then they wouldn't have to advertise them.”
“Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment.”
“When the Judgment Day comes civilization will have an alibi, "I never took a human life, I only sold the fellow the gun to take it with."”
“One-third of the people in the United States promote, while the other two-thirds provide.”
“Sure must be a great consolation to the poor people who lost their stock in the late crash to know that it has fallen in the hands of Mr. Rockefeller, who will take care of it and see it has a good home and never be allowed to wander around unprotected again. There is one rule that works in every calamity. Be it pestilence, war, or famine, the rich get richer and poor get poorer. The poor even help arrange it.”
“So let's be honest with ourselves and not take ourselves too serious, and never condemn the other fellow for doing what we are doing every day, only in a different way.”
“But it’s just as Mr. Brisbane and I have been constantly telling you, "Don’t gamble"; take all your savings and buy some good stock, and hold it till it goes up, then sell it. If it don’t go up, don’t buy it.”
“It's a good thing we don't get all the government we pay for.”
“Now if there is one thing that we do worse than any other nation, it is try and manage somebody else's affairs.”
“You can't say that civilization don't advance, however, for in every war they kill you in a new way.”
“An onion can make people cry but there's never been a vegetable that can make people laugh.”
“Half our life is spent trying to find something to do with the time we have rushed through life trying to save.”
“Ohio claims they are due a president as they haven't had one since Taft. Look at the United States, they have not had one since Lincoln.”
“This would be a great world to dance in if we didn't have to pay the fiddler.”
“I bet after seeing us, George Washington would sue us for calling him 'father.'”
“America is becoming so educated that ignorance will be a novelty. I will belong to the select few.”
“This country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session as when the baby gets hold of a hammer.”
“Last year we said, 'Things can't go on like this', and they didn't, they got worse.”
“We are the first nation to starve to death in a storehouse that's overfilled with everything we want.”
“I never expected to see the day when girls would get sunburned in the places they now do.”
“The fellow that can only see a week ahead is always the popular fellow, for he is looking with the crowd. But the one that can see years ahead, he has a telescope but he can't make anybody believe that he has it.”
“I certainly know that [A] comedian can only last till he either takes himself serious or his audience takes him serious and I don't want either of those to happen to me til I am dead (if then).”
“Anything important is never left to the vote of the people. We only get to vote on some man; we never get to vote on what he is to do.”
“I not only "don't choose to run" but I don't even want to leave a loophole in case I am drafted, so I won't "choose". I will say "won't run" no matter how bad the country will need a comedian by that time.”
“The more you observe politics, the more you've got to admit that each party is worse than the other.”
“Politics has got so expensive that it takes lots of money to even get beat with.”
“Politics has become so expensive that it takes a lot of money even to be defeated.”
“The more that learn to read the less learn how to make a living. That's one thing about a little education. It spoils you for actual work. The more you know the more you think somebody owes you a living.”
“The movies are the only business where you can go out front and applaud yourself.”
“This would be a great time in the world for some man to come along that knew something.”
“Be thankful we're not getting all the government we're paying for.”
“Our constitution protects aliens, drunks and U.S. Senators.”
“I doubt if a charging elephant, or a rhino, is as determined, or hard to check, as a socially ambitious mother.”
“The income tax has made liars out of more Americans than golf.”
“The more that learn to read the less learn how to make a living. That's one thing about a little education. It spoils you for actual work. The more you know the more you think somebody owes you a living.”
“This country has gotten where it is in spite of politics, not by the aid of it. That we have carried as much political bunk as we have and still survived shows we are a super nation.”
“If you can build a business up big enough, it's respectable.”
“This thing of being a hero, about the main thing to it is to know when to die.”
“I have always said that a conference was held for one reason only, to give everybody a chance to get sore at everybody else. Sometimes it takes two or three conferences to scare up a war, but generally one will do it.”
“Even though you are on the right track - you will get run over if you just sit there.”
“There ain't nothing that breaks up homes, country, and nations like somebody publishing their memoirs.”
“The man with the best job in the country is the vice-president. All he has to do is get up every morning and say, 'How is the president?'”
“Our constitution protects aliens, drunks, and U. S. Senators. There ought to be one day (just one) when there is open season on senators.”
“There is no more independence in politics than there is in jail.”
“We don't know what we want, but we are ready to bite somebody to get it.”
“An economist's guess is liable to be as good as anybody else's.”
“No party is as bad as its state and national leaders.”
“The United States never lost a war or won a conference.”
“advertising [...] makes you spend money you haven't got for things you don't want.”
“I guess there is nothing that will get your mind off everything like golf. I have never been depressed enough to take up the game, but they say you get so sore at yourself you forget to hate your enemies.”
“The United States never lost a war or won a conference.”
“Instead of giving money to found colleges to promote learning, why don't they pass a constitutional amendment prohibiting anybody from learning anything? If it works as good as the Prohibition one did, why, in five years we would have the smartest race of people on earth.”
“We are the first nation in the history of the world to go to the poor house in an automobile.”
“The schools ain't what they used to be and never was.”
“When you get into trouble 5,000 miles from home, you’ve got to have been looking for it.”
“Why don't they pass a constitutional amendment prohibiting anybody from learning anything? If it works as well as prohibition did, in five years Americans would be the smartest race of people on Earth.”
“The only time people dislike gossip is when you gossip about them.”
“About all I can say for the United States Senate is that it opens with a prayer and closes with an investigation.”
“The movies are the only business where you can go out front and applaud yourself.”
“Liberty doesn't work as well in practice as it does in speeches.”
“We all can't be heroes, for someone has to sit on the curb and clap as they go by.”
“The more that learn to read the less learn how to make a living. That's one thing about a little education. It spoils you for actual work. The more you know the more you think somebody owes you a living.”
“Personally, I have always felt the best doctor in the world is the veterinarian. He can't ask his patients what is the matter — he's got to just know.”
“If I studied all my life, I couldn't think up half the number of funny things passed in one session of congress.”
“An onion can make people cry, but there has never been a vegetable invented to make them laugh.”
“The 1928 Republican Convention opened with a prayer. If the Lord can see His way clear to bless the Republican Party the way it's been carrying on, then the rest of us ought to get it without even asking.”
“An ignorant person is one who doesn't know what you have just found out.”
“We don't seem to be able to check crime, so why not legalize it and then tax it out of business?”
“We are here just for a spell and then pass on. So get a few laughs and do the best you can. Live your life so that whenever you lose it, you are ahead.”
“One Ad is worth more to a paper than forty Editorials.”
“There's no trick to being a humorist when you have the whole government working for you.”
“In Hollywood the woods are full of people that learned to write but evidently can't read. If they could read their stuff, they'd stop writing.”
“Buy land. They ain't making any more of the stuff.”
“Communism to me is one-third practice and two-thirds explanation.”
“Ancient Rome declined because it had a Senate; now what's going to happen to us with both a Senate and a House?”
“A holding company is a thing where you hand an accomplice the goods while the policeman searches you.”
“What the country needs is dirtier fingernails and cleaner minds.”
“Alexander Hamilton started the U.S. Treasury with nothing, and that was the closest our country has ever been to being even.”
“Be thankful we're not getting all the government we're paying for.”
“I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a Democrat.”
“I have a scheme for stopping war. It's this - no nation is allowed to enter a war till they have paid for the last one.”
“Take the diplomacy out of war and the thing would fall flat in a week.”
“On account of being a democracy and run by the people, we are the only nation in the world that has to keep a government four years, no matter what it does.”
“The rest of the people know the condition of the country, for they live in it, but Congress has no idea what is going on in America, so the President has to tell 'em.”
“It's easy being a humorist when you've got the whole government working for you.”
“Ten men in our country could buy the whole world and ten million can't buy enough to eat.”
“If you make any money, the government shoves you in the creek once a year with it in your pockets, and all that don't get wet you can keep.”
“The more you read and observe about this Politics thing, you got to admit that each party is worse than the other. The one that's out always looks the best.”
“I belong to no organized party. I am a Democrat.”
“I tell you Folks, all Politics is Apple Sauce.”
“The worst thing that happens to you may be the best thing for you if you don't let it get the best of you.”
“If you can build a business up big enough, it's respectable.”
“The income tax has made more liars out of the American people than golf has. Even when you make one out on the level, you don't know when it's through if you are a Crook or a Martyr.”
“Let advertisers spend the same amount of money improving their product that they do on advertising and they wouldn't have to advertise it.”
“Everything is funny as long as it is happening to Somebody Else.”
“Why don't they pass a constitutional amendment prohibiting anybody from learning anything? If it works as well as prohibition did, in five years Americans would be the smartest race of people on Earth.”
“Make crime pay. Become a lawyer.”
“The only way you can beat the lawyers is to die with nothing.”
“Now everything is funny as long as it is happening to somebody Else, but when it happens to you, why it seems to lose some of its Humor, and if it keeps on happening, why the entire laughter kinder Fades out of it.”
“I have no Politics. I am for the Party that is out of Power, no matter which one it is. But I will give you my word that, in case of my appointment, I will not be a Republican; I will do my best to pull with you, and not embarrass you. In fact, my views on European affairs are so in accord with you, Mr. President, that I might almost be suspected of being a Democrat.”
“The American people are a very generous people and will forgive almost any weakness, with the possible exception of stupidity.”
“Every Gag I tell must be based on truth. No matter how much I may exaggerate it, it must have a certain amount of Truth. ... Now Rumor travels Faster, but it don't stay put as long as Truth.”
“An economist's guess is liable to be as good as anybody else's.”
“We will never have true civilization until we have learned to recognize the rights of others.”
“A man that don't love a Horse, there is something the matter with him. If he has no sympathy for the man that does love Horses, then there is something worse the matter with him.”
“I am not a member of any organized party — I am a Democrat.”
“There is no credit to being a comedian, when you have the whole Government working for you. All you have to do is report the facts. I don't even have to exaggerate.”
“There is only one thing that can kill the Movies, and that is education.”
“Communism is like prohibition, it's a good idea but it won't work.”
“You can't say civilization don't advance, however, for in every war they kill you in a new way.”
“When you put down the good things you ought to have done, and leave out the bad ones you did do — well, that’s Memoirs.”
“Lord, the money we do spend on Government and it's not one bit better than the government we got for one-third the money twenty years ago.”
“When I die, my epitaph or whatever you call those signs on gravestones is going to read: "I joked about every prominent man of my time, but I never met a man I didn't like." I am so proud of that I can hardly wait to die so it can be carved. And when you come to my grave you will find me sitting there, proudly reading it.”
“Too many people spend money they haven't earned to buy things they don't want to impress people they don't like.”
“I originated a remark many years ago that I think has been copied more than any little thing that I've every said, and I used it in the FOLLIES of 1922. I said America has a unique record. We never lost a war and we never won a conference in our lives. I believe that we could without any degree of egotism, single-handed lick any nation in the world. But we can't confer with Costa Rica and come home with our shirts on.”
“I bet you if I had met him and had a chat with him, I would have found him a very interesting and human fellow, for I never yet met a man that I dident like. When you meet people, no matter what opinion you might have formed about them beforehand, why, after you meet them and see their angle and their personality, why, you can see a lot of good in all of them.”
“We can make this thing into a Party, instead of a Memory.”
“And kid Congress and the Senate, don't scold 'em. They are just children thats never grown up. They don't like to be corrected in company. Don't send messages to 'em, send candy.”
“On account of being a democracy and run by the people, we are the only nation in the world that has to keep a government four years, no matter what it does.”
“You've got to be optimist to be a Democrat, and you've got to be a humorist to stay one.”
“You've never in your life seen a picture, I bet any one of you, never seen a picture of one of these old Pilgrims praying when they didn't have a gun right by the side of them. That was to see that he got what he was praying for.”
“Do the best you can, and don't take life too serious.”
“The best way out of a difficulty is through it.”
“That's one thing about Republican Presidents. They never went in much for plans. They only had one plan. It says "Boys, my head is turned. Just get it while you can."”
“A man only learns in two ways, one by reading, and the other by association with smarter people.”
“If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went.”
“There's no trick to being a humorist when you have the whole government working for you.”
“Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment.”
“Everything is funny, as long as it's happening to somebody else.”
“I never expected to see the day when girls would get sunburned in the places they now do.”
“Be thankful we're not getting all the government we're paying for.”
“Politics has become so expensive that it takes a lot of money even to be defeated.”
“There are three kinds of men. The one that learns by reading. The few who learn by observation. The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence for themselves.”
“The movies are the only business where you can go out front and applaud yourself.”
“Everybody is ignorant, only on different subjects.”
“There's only one thing that can kill the movies, and that's education.”
“I never expected to see the day when girls would get sunburned in the places they now do.”
“Instead of giving money to found colleges to promote learning, why don't they pass a constitutional amendment prohibiting anybody from learning anything? If it works as good as the Prohibition one did, why, in five years we would have the smartest race of people on earth.”
“I'm not a real movie star. I've still got the same wife I started out with twenty-eight years ago.”
“People are getting smarter nowadays; they are letting lawyers, instead of their conscience, be their guide.”