Quotes by Will Rogers

Half our life is spent trying to find something to do with the time we have rushed through life trying to save.

The road to success is dotted with many tempting parking spaces.

The quickest way to double your money is to fold it in half and put it in your back pocket.

A man only learns in two ways, one by reading, and the other by association with smarter people.

Politics is applesauce.

Everyone is ignorant only on different subjects.

You can't legislate intelligence and common sense into people.

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.

You never get a second chance to make a first impression.

When I die, I want to die like my grandfather who died peacefully in his sleep. Not screaming like all the passengers in his car.

Everything is changing. People are taking the comedians seriously and the politicians as a joke.

If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went.

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.

There is something about riding on a prancing horse that makes you feel like something, even when you aint worth a thing.

The budget is a mythical bean bag. Congress votes mythical beans into it, and then tries to reach in and pull real beans out.

Too many people spend money they earned to buy things they don't want to impress people that they don't like.

Even if you are on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there.

A remark generally hurts in proportion to its truth.

There are two things that I don't care how smart you are, you will never understand. One is an alienist's testimony and the other is a railroad timetable.

An onion can make people cry, but there has never been a vegetable invented to make them laugh.

You never know how much a man can't remember until he is called as a witness.

Man only learns in two ways, one by reading, and the other by association with smarter people.

There's two theories to arguing with a woman. Neither works.

A conference is just an admission that you want somebody to join you in your troubles.

When everybody has got money they cut taxes, and when they're broke they raise 'em. That's statesmanship of the highest order.

Popularity is the easiest thing in the world to gain and it is the hardest thing to hold.

There are two things that can disrupt business in this country. One is War, and the other is a meeting of the Federal Reserve Bank.

Every day you meet a delegation going to some convention to try and change the way of somebody else's life.

Eventually you reach a point when you stop lying about your age and start bragging about it.

If you ever injected truth into politics you have no politics.

They are having quite an argument over Treasury Secretary Mellon's Tax Bill. Mr. Mellon wants to cut the surtax on the rich, and leave it as is on the poor, as there is more poor than rich. I suppose the majority will win.

You got to do more than just live in the country to be a Farmer.

Farmers have about given up hope of getting farm relief and have decided to fertilize instead.

Don't raise anything, except what fits your appetite. Then the price don't worry you. Just raise all you can eat and let the low prices go by.

Cattlemen have lost more in the last few years than anybody and say less about it.

Coolidge has the best idea on this farm relief. He said, 'Farmers, you are in a hole. I can't help you, but I will get in with you.' He did. That made it fine so the farmers were satisfied as long as Coolidge was going to get in with them.

This session of Congress is also to relieve the farmer again, relieve him of any encouragement that he might have received during the last one.

It rained in the Middle West. Farmers are learning that the relief they get from the sky beats what they get from Washington.

In the Middle West now you got to put a brand on your soil, then in the Spring go on a round-up looking for it.

The government says they have loaned over One Billion dollars to the Farmers. In other words, we can't help you make any money, but we will show you where you can owe some more.

Banking and after-dinner speaking are two of the most nonessential industries we have in this country. I am ready to reform, if they are.

I was born because it was a habit in those days, people didn't know anything else.

Our country has plenty of five-cent cigars, but the trouble is they charge fifteen cents for them.

There wasn't any Republicans in Washington's day. No Republicans, no Boll Weevil, no income tax, no cover charge, no disarmament conference, no luncheon clubs, no stop lights, no static, no head winds. My Lord, living in those days, who wouldn't be great?

Conferences are just like the poor and the Democrats, they will always be with us.

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.

The nation is prosperous on the whole, but how much prosperity is there in a hole?

I maintain that it should cost as much to get married as to get divorced. Make it look like marriage is worth as much as divorce, even if it ain't.

Well, the disarmament conference is off to a flying start. There is nothing to prevent their succeeding now but human nature.

The South is dry and will vote dry. That is, everybody that is sober enough to stagger to the polls will.

I guess truth can hurt you worse in an election than about anything that can happen to you.

The Republicans have their splits right after election and Democrats have theirs just before an election.

There is nothing as easy as denouncing. It don't take much to see that something is wrong, but it does take some eyesight to see what will put it right again.

There is two things that can disrupt business in this country. One is War, and the other is a meeting of the Federal Reserve Bank.

I never mewt a man I didn't like.

Prosperity this Winter is going to be enjoyed by everybody that is fortunate enough to get into the poor farm.

I wonder if it isn't just cowardice instead of generosity that makes us give tips.

A comedian can only last till he either takes himself serious or his audience takes him serious.

Government investigations have always contributed more to our amusement than they have to our knowledge.

A liberal is a man who wants to use his own ideas on things in preference to generations who, he knows, know more than he does.

One way to solve the traffic problem is to keep all the cars that are not paid for off the streets.

The good old horse-and-buggy days: then you lived until you died and not until you were run over.

Us middle class...never have to worry about having old furniture to point out to our friends. We buy it on payments and before it's paid for it's plenty antique.

You know no nation has a monopoly on good things, each one has something that the others could well afford to adopt.

You shake a slogan at an American and it's just like showing a hungry dog a bone.

You know you've got to exercise your brain just like your muscles.

It wasn't what we needed then that was hurting us, it was what we was paying for that we had already used up. The country was just buying gasoline for a leaky tank. Everything was going into a gopher hole and you couldent see where you was going to get any of it back.

Why don't somebody print the truth about our present economic situation? We spent six years of wild buying on credit -- everything under the sun, whether we needed it or not -- and now we are having to pay for 'em, and we are howling like a pet coon.

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.

Every time somebody has thought of relief for the farmer it has been to make it so he could borrow more money. What he needs is some way to pay back. Not some way to borrow more.

This thing about getting rid of a man in the Cabinet is all right, but there is one bad feature to it that few people realize. That is, that unfortunately every one of them is replaced by someone else. If it wasn't for that, this resignation business would be great.

If Wall Street paid a tax on every game they run, we would get enough revenue to run the government on.

The US is safest when Congress is in recess.

Rotation of crops and less automobiles will relieve the farmers whenever they decide to try it.

When you are satisfied, you are successful. For that's all there is to success is satisfaction.

Never miss a chance to shut up.

The Supreme Court is divided almost in half on the decisions. Talk about an international court. How would we ever agree with a lot of foreigners when we can't even agree among our own judges?

You give us long enough to argue over something and we will bring you in proofs to show that the Ten Commandments should never be ratified.

Personally, I have always felt that the best doctor in the world is the Veterinarian. He can't ask his patients what is the matter...he's just got to know.

Congress knew Coolidge would veto the farm bill. There was more politics than relief in that bill.

How is the government going to get the extra taxes? Out of the rich, or just out of the poor, as usual?

If you eliminate the names of Lincoln, Washington, Roosevelt, Jackson and Wilson, both conventions would get out three days earlier.

Labor Day, I suppose set by an Act of Congress. Everything we do nowadays is either by, or against, Acts of Congress. How Congress knew anything about Labor is beyond us.

After eating an entire bull, a mountain lion felt so good he started roaring. He kept it up until a hunter came along and shot him... The moral: When you're full of bull, keep your mouth shut.

Every man is ignorant -- just on different subjects.

We are all ignorant. We are just ignorant about different things.

The farmers can be thankful. Didn't the Farm Board decide in Washington last week that they could have cheaper interest? All the farmers have to do now is to find something new to put up as security.

Take me ham away, take away my eggs, even my Chili, but leave me my newspaper.

Coolidge made less speeches and got more votes than any man that ever run. (William Jennings) Bryan was listened to and cheered by more people than any single human in politics, and he lost. So there is a doubt just whether talking does you good or harm.

The minute a thing is long and complicated, it confuses. Whoever wrote the Ten Commandments made 'em short. They may not always be kept, but they are understood.

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.

I am just an old country boy in a big town trying to get along. I have been eating pretty regular and the reason I have been is because I have stayed an old country boy.

In a real estate man's eye, the most expensive part of the city is where he has a house to sell.

That's the trouble with our charities; we are always saving somebody away off, when the fellow next to us ain't eating.

The man that found the 726-carat diamond in Africa, received $350,000 for it and wants to buy a farm and silk hat. Well, I can understand a man perhaps being eccentric enough to want to own a silk hat.

See what will happen if you don't stop biting your fingernails.

I traveled a good deal all over the world, and I got along pretty good in all these foreign countries, for I have a theory that it's their country and they got a right to run it like they want to.

Civilization has taught us to eat with a fork, but even now if nobody is around we use our fingers.

Women are not the weak, frail little flowers that they are advertised. There has never been anything invented yet, including war, that a man would enter into, that a woman wouldn't, too.

Government spending? I don't know what it's all about. I don't know any more about this thing than an economist does, and, God knows, he doesn't know much.

I'm not against (bull fighting). Some nations like to see blood, and some like to see their victims suffer from speculation... They kill the bull very quick. Wall Street lets you live and suffer.

Both gangs have been bad sports, so see if at least one can't redeem themselves by offering no alibis, but cooperate with the winner, for no matter which one it is the poor fellow is going to need it.

It's the greatest game I ever saw. You can't lose. Everybody buys to sell and nobody buys to keep. What's worrying me is who is going to be the last owner. It's just like an auction; the only one stuck is the last one.

Believe in something for another world, but don't be too set on what it is, and then you won't start out that life with a disappontment. Live your life so that whenever you lose you are ahead.

Politicians are just a bunch of local bandits, sent by their local voters to raid the public treasury.

I remember when being liberal meant being generous with your own money.

Being young is beautiful, but being old is comfortable.

George Bernard Shaw of England stopped over just long enough to make one speech in Bombay, India, started a war and 100 Indians killed each other. That's what I call good speech-making. The only enthusiasm any of our speakers can rouse is a demand to kill the speaker.

Real estate is the best investment in the world because it is the only thing they're not making any more.

There is not a better day in the world to be spent than with a lot of wise old cowmen around barbecued beef, black coffee and good free holy beans.

You should never try and teach a pig to read for two reasons. First, it's impossible; and secondly, it annoys the hell out of the pig!

I would love to see Mr. (Henry) Ford in there, really. I don't know who started the idea that a President must be a Politician instead of a Business man. A Politician can't run any other kind of business. So there is no reason why he can run the U.S. That's the biggest single business in the World.

President Coolidge said, 'I don't want the Government to go into business.' Well, if I was Mr. Coolidge I wouldn't worry over that. The Government never has been accused of being a business man.

My father was one-eighth Cherokee indian and my mother was quarter-blood Cherokee. I never got far enough in arithmetic to figure out how much injun that made me, but there's nothing of which I am more proud than my Cherokee blood.

I am a great believer in high-priced people. If a thing cost a lot it may not be any better, but it adds a certain amount of class that the cheap thing can never approach; in the long run it's the higher-priced things that are the cheapest.

It's one of the most progressive cities in the world. Shooting is only a sideline.

Communism is like prohibition, it is a good idea, but it won't work.

If you got a dollar, soak it away, put it in a savings bank, bury it, do anything but spend it. Spending when we didn't have it put us where we are today. Saving when we've got it will get us back to where we was before we went cuckoo.

I don't think either one of them knows what it's all about, to be honest with you. Both sides are doing nothing but just looking towards the next election.

On prohibiting anybody from learning anything: Why, in five years we would have the smartest race of people on earth.

The only real diplomacy ever performed by a diplomat is in deceiving their own people after their dumbness has got them into a war.

Our whole Depression was brought on by gambling, not in the stock market alone but in expanding and borrowing and going in debt... all just to make some easy money quick.

These dust storms.... Poor farmer spent a lifetime fixin' his farm and everything, goes out and looks down at it, and it's up above him.

The Republicans have a habit of having three bad years and one good one, and the good one always happens to be election years.

It will take America fifteen years of steady taking care of our own business and letting everybody else's alone, to get us back to where everybody speaks to us again.

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.

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.

The American people are a very generous people and will forgive almost any weakness, with the possible, exception of stupidity.

Both political parties have their good times and bad times, only they have them at different times.

It looks like the financial giants of the world have bungled as much as the diplomats and politicians. This would be a great time in the world for some man to come along that knew something.

There have been three great inventions since the beginning of time: fire, the wheel, and central banking.

There ain't nothing that breaks up homes, country and nations like somebody publishing their memoirs.

We are all here for a spell, get all the good laughs you can.

A senator got up today in Congress and called his fellow senators sons of wild jackasses. Now, if you think the senators were hot, imagine how the jackasses must feel.

It sure did kick up some excitement in the Senate when one Senator called the other Senators 'sons of Wild jackasses.' Well, if you thought it made the Senators hot, you wait till you see what happens when the jackasses hear how they have been slandered.

I don't care how poor and inefficient a little country is -- they like to run their own business. I know men that would -make my wife a better husband than I am but, darn it, I'm not going to give her to 'em.

If your Income Taxes go to help out the less fortunate, there could be no legitimate kick against it in the world. This is becoming the richest, and the poorest Country in the world. Why? Why, on account of an unequal distribution of the money.

Senators are a never-ending source of amusement, amazement, and discouragement.

Mona Lisa is the only beauty who went through history and retained her reputation.

I was born on Nov. 4, which is Election Day... my birthday has made more men, and sent more back to honest work, than any of the other days in the year.

I hope we never live to see the day when a thing is as bad as some of our newspapers make it.

Every man gets an opportunity once in a lifetime.

We Americans think we are pretty good! We want to build a house, we cut down some trees. We want to build a fire, we dig a little coal. But when we run out of all these things, then we will find out just how good we really are.

Live your life so that whenever you lose, you are ahead.

We are always yapping about the 'Good Old Days' and how we look back and enjoy it, but I tell you there is a lot of hooey to it. There is a whole lot of all our past lives that wasn't so hot.

Many a politician wishes there was a law to burn old records.

I don't know how I got over the hill without getting to the top.

There is no more interesting place in the world to meet characters than a movie set.

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.

People don't change under governments. Governments change. People remain the same.

The only way to solve the traffic problems of the country is to pass a law that only paid-for cars are allowed to use the highways. That would make traffic so scarce, we could use our boulevards for children's playgrounds.

Farmers have more Associations, and Bureaus, and Clubs, than they have pitchforks.

A Realtor is an old fashioned Real Estate man with a neck tie. A Real Estate man sold you what you wanted, a Realtor sells you what you don't need. A Real Estate man showed you what you could raise on the land, a Realtor tells you what you can build on it.

Funny to watch these Senators switching back and forth on Prohibition. Politics is a great character builder. You have to take a referendum to see what your convictions are for that day.

Don't wait to buy land, Buy land and wait. Find out where the people are going and buy the land before they get there.

Old Hollywood is just like a desert water in Africa. Hang around long enough and every kind of animal in the world will drift in for refreshments.

Nothing you can't spell will ever work.

I doubt if a charging elephant, or a rhino, is as determined or hard to check as a socially ambitious mother.

I see where they are going to be more strict with these robbers; when they catch 'em from now on, they're going to publish their names.

Every Harvard class should have one Democrat to rescue it from oblivion.

A man who dies without adequate life insurance should have to come back and see the mess he created.

Shrewdness in public life all over the world is always honored, while honesty in public men is generally attributed to dumbness and is seldom rewarded.

Strangers are just friends I haven't met yet.

You have to have a serious streak in you, or you can't see the funny side of the other fellow.

It is a good thing that we do not get as much government as we pay for.

I haven't seen a tractor working all day. The country has gone sane and got back to horses. Farmers all look worse, but they feel better.

If we could just go back the last two or three years and do our buying a little more carefully, why... we would be O.K.

I bet you, if I had met Trotsky, and had had a chat with him, I would have found him a very interesting and human fellow, for I have never yet met a man I didn't like.

There's a simple solution to our traffic problems. We'll have business build the roads, and government build the cars.

Politics pretty quiet over the week-end. Democrats are attacking and the Republicans are defending. All the Democrats have to do is promise what they would do if they got in. But the Republicans have to promise what they would do and then explain why they haven't already done it.

I can remember way back when a liberal was one who was generous with his money.

The older we get, the fewer things seem worth waiting in line for.

And if you call one a real estate agent and he won't sell you anything. He is a REALATOR. It's the same as what the old fashioned real estate agent used to be only the commission is different.

I read where they are going to limit debate in the Senate. It used to be that a man could talk all day, but now, as soon as he tells all he knows, he has to sit down. Most of these birds will just be getting up and nodding now. Why, some of them won't be able to answer roll call.

Any person that don't read at least one well-written country newspaper is not truly informed.

I see where we are starting to pay some attention to our neighbors to the south. We could never understand why Mexico wasn't just crazy about us, for we have always had their good will, and oil and minerals, at heart.

Plans get you into things, but you got to work your way out.

You can't fool all of the people all of the time. But it isn't necessary.

Baseball is a skilled game. It's America's game -- it, and high taxes.

Farmers, get out your sense of humor. Congress meets to relieve you again next week.

A debt is just as hard for a Government to pay as it is for an individual. No debt ever comes due at a good time. Borrowing is the only thing that seems handy all the time.

What the Secretary of Agriculture is trying to do is to teach the farmer corn acreage control, and the hogs birth control, and one is just as hard to make understand it as the other.

Coolidge is a better example of evolution than either Bryan or Darrow, for he knows when not to talk, which is the biggest asset the monkey possesses over the human.

The Democrats are going to change the name of the Hoover Dam. That is the silliest thing I ever heard of in politics ... Lord if they feel that way about it, I don't see why they don't just reverse the two words.

I don't think you can make a lawyer honest by an act of legislature. You've got to work on his conscience. And his lack of conscience is what makes him a lawyer.

You see, in Washington they have these bodies, Senate and the House of Representatives. That is for the convenience of the visitors. If there is nothing funny happening in one, there is sure to be in the other, and in case one body passes a good bill, why, the other can see it in time and kill it.

But we can't alibi all our ills by just knocking the old banker. First he loaned the money, then the people all at once wanted it back, and he didn't have it. Now he's got it again, and is afraid to loan it, so the poor devil don't know what to do.

I would never make a good economist. You know, an economist is a man that can tell you anything about -- well, he will tell you what can happen under any given condition -- and his guess is liable to be as good as anybody else's, too.

In Europe public men do resign. But here it's a lost art. You have to impeach 'em.

If we have Senators and Congressmen there that can't protect themselves against the evil temptations of lobbyists, we don't need to change our lobbies, we need to change our representatives.

Lobbyists have more offices in Washington than the President. You see, the President only tells Congress what they should do. Lobbyists tell'em what they will do.

No nation ever had two better friends that we have. You know who they are? The Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

Foreign relations is an open book -- generally a checkbook.