Will Rogers Quotes

77 quotations by Will Rogers

You can't say civilization don't advance... in every war they kill you in a new way.

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.

When the Oakies left Oklahoma and moved to California, it raised the I.Q. of both states.

What the country needs is dirtier fingernails and cleaner minds.

We will never have true civilization until we have learned to recognize the rights of others.

This thing of being a hero, about the main thing to it is to know when to die.

Things in our country run in spite of government, not by aid of it.

Things ain't what they used to be and never were.

There's only one thing that can kill the movies, and that's education.

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.

The United States never lost a war or won a conference.

The only way you can beat the lawyers is to die with nothing.

The only time people dislike gossip is when you gossip about them.

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.

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 farmer has to be an optimist or he wouldn't still be a farmer.

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.

The best way out of a difficulty is through it.

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.

Take the diplomacy out of war and the thing would fall flat in a week.

So live that you wouldn't be ashamed to sell the family parrot to the town gossip.

Politics has become so expensive that it takes a lot of money even to be defeated.

People's minds are changed through observation and not through argument.

People who fly into a rage always make a bad landing.

One-third of the people in the United States promote, while the other two-thirds provide.

One Ad is worth more to a paper than forty Editorials.

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.

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.

Never let yesterday use up too much of today.

Make crime pay. Become a lawyer.

Live in such a way that you would not be ashamed to sell your parrot to the town gossip.

Lettin' the cat outta the bag is a whole lot easier 'n puttin' it back in.

Let advertisers spend the same amount of money improving their product that they do on advertising and they wouldn't have to advertise it.

It's not what you pay a man, but what he costs you that counts.

It's easy being a humorist when you've got the whole government working for you.

It isn't what we don't know that gives us trouble, it's what we know that ain't so.

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.

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

If you can build a business up big enough, it's respectable.

If the world comes to an end, I want to be in Cincinnati. Everything comes there ten years later.

If Stupidity got us into this mess, then why can't it get us out?

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.

I'm not a member of any organized political party, I'm a Democrat!

I never expected to see the day when girls would get sunburned in the places they now do.

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.

I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts.

I don't know jokes; I just watch the government and report the facts.

I bet after seeing us, George Washington would sue us for calling him "father."

I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a Democrat.

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

Everything is funny, as long as it's happening to somebody else.

Everything is funny as long as it is happening to someone else.

Everybody is ignorant, only on different subjects.

Even though you are on the right track - you will get run over if you just sit there.

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

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

Don't let yesterday use up too much of today.

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.

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.

Diplomacy is the art of saying "Nice doggie" until you can find a rock.

Democrats never agree on anything, that's why they're Democrats. If they agreed with each other, they would be Republicans.

Being a hero is about the shortest-lived profession on earth.

Be thankful we're not getting all the government we're paying for.

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.

Ancient Rome declined because it had a Senate, now what's going to happen to us with both a House and a Senate?

An onion can make people cry but there's never been a vegetable that can make people laugh.

An economist's guess is liable to be as good as anybody else's.

America is becoming so educated that ignorance will be a novelty. I will belong to the select few.

America is a nation that conceives many odd inventions for getting somewhere but it can think of nothing to do once it gets there.

All I know is just what I read in the papers, and that's an alibi for my ignorance.

Alexander Hamilton started the U.S. Treasury with nothing, and that was the closest our country has ever been to being even.

A remark generally hurts in proportion to its truth.

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

A holding company is a thing where you hand an accomplice the goods while the policeman searches you.

A fool and his money are soon elected.

A difference of opinion is what makes horse racing and missionaries.