Will Rogers

Will Rogers (1879-1935)

American humorist

Sourced:

• "Everything is funny so long as it is happening to somebody else."
  • Source: The Illiterate Digest (1924)

• "I joked about every prominent man in my lifetime, but I never met one I didn't like."
  • Source: Epitaph

• "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.
  • Source: newspaper article rejecting the idea that he run for President of the U.S.

• "I tell you folks, all politics is applesauce"
  • Source: The Illiterate Digest (1924)

• "You can't say civilization don't advance, however, for in every war they kill you in a new way."
  • Source: Autobiography

Attributed:

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

• "All I know is just what I read in the papers."
  • Notes: a comment Rogers often used in his appearances.

• "Everybody is ignorant. Only on different subjects."

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

• "Every time Congress makes a joke it's a law, and every time they make a law it's a joke."

• "I am a peace man. I haven't got any use for wars and there is no more humor in 'em than there is reason for 'em."

• "I don't care how little your country is, you got a right to run it like you want to. When the big nations quit meddling then the world will have peace."

• "I got a telegram from Amarillo, Texas, and they want me to say something about mothers-in-law. They say thay are having a mother-in-law day. I had a wonderful mother-in-law, and I always felt--after looking at mothers-in-law and seeing sons-in-law--I always felt that the jokes were on the wrong ones. No sir, you can look through everything I ever did write or say, and you never did hear me tell a joke about any mother-in-law, or any creed, color or religion, either."

• "I represent a new class of people in this country, the newly poor."

• "I tell you, this finding out how to govern a country, or even a state, or county, or even town, has got the whole world licked. There is not a type of government that can point with complete pride and say: There, this is the best that can be had!"

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

• "It's great to be great, but its greater to be human."

• "Liberty don't work as good in practice as it does in speeches."

• "Live your life so that whenever you lose, you're ahead."

• "My idea of an honest man is a fellow who declares income tax on money he sold his vote for."

• "No man is great if he thinks he is."

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

• "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."

• "People are marvelous in their generosity if they just know the cause is there."

• "People often ask me, 'Will, where do you get your jokes?' I just tell 'em, 'Well, I watch the government and report the facts, that is all I do, and I don't even find it necessary to exaggerate.'"

• "The Democrats ran on 'Honesty' and I told 'em at the time they would never get anywhere. It was too radical for politics. The Republicans ran on 'Common Sense' and the returns showed that there were 8 million more people in the United States who had 'Common Sense' enough not to believe that there was 'Honesty' in politics."

• "The income tax has made more liars out of the American people than golf has. Even when you make a tax form out on the level, you don't know when it's through if you are a crook or a martyr."

• "This country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session as when the baby gets hold of a hammer."

• "This would be a great world to dance in if we didn't have to pay the fiddler."

• "We all can't be heroes, for someone has to sit on the curb and clap as they go by."

• "We are the first nation to starve to death in a storehouse that's overfilled with everything we want."

• "We hold the distinction of being the only nation that is goin' to the poorhouse in an automobile."

• "We'll hold the distinction of being the only Nation in the history of the world that ever went to the poor house in an automobile."

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

• "When the Okies left Oklahoma and moved to California, they raised the average intelligence levels in both states."

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

• "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 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."

• "There's no trick to being a humorist when you have the whole government working for you."

• "I don't belong to an organized political party. I'm a Democrat."