Will Rogers

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.

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

We can't all be heroes, because somebody has to sit on the curb and applaud when they go by.

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

Polo, racing and horse shows all are doing great work to help the farmer and rancher to raise better horses.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

Money and women are the most sought after and the least known about of any two things we have.

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

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

Do the best you can, and don't take life too serious.

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

When ignorance gets started it knows no bounds.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

Communism is like prohibition it is a good idea but it wont work.

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

There ought to be one day - just one - when there is open season on senators.

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

The main thing about being a hero is to know when to die.

One ad is worth more to a paper than forty editorials.

Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment.

Last year we said, 'Things can't go on like this', and they didn't, they got worse.

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

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

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

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.

Even if youre on the right track youll get run over if you just sit there.

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.

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

Buy land. They ain't making any more of the stuff.

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.

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

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

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

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

Now if there is one thing that we do worse than any other nation, it is try and manage somebody else's affairs.

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.

The income tax has made liars out of more Americans than golf.

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 more you observe politics, the more you've got to admit that each party is worse than the other.

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

People are getting smarter nowadays; they are letting lawyers, instead of their conscience, be their guide.

If the other fellow sells cheaper than you, it is called dumping. 'Course, if you sell cheaper than him, that's mass production.

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

Advertising is the art of convincing people to spend money they don't have for something they don't need.

I'm not a real movie star. I've still got the same wife I started out with twenty-eight years ago.

Rumor travels faster, but it don't stay put as long as truth.

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.

The schools ain't what they used to be and never was.

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

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

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

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 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?'

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

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

What the country needs is dirtier fingernails and cleaner minds.

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

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

One revolution is like one cocktail, it just gets you organized for the next.

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

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

We don't seem to be able to check crime, so why not legalize it and then tax it out of business?

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

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

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

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

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

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?"

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

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.

An ignorant person is one who doesn't know what you have just found out.

A fool and his money are soon elected.

Chaotic action is preferable to orderly inaction.

Golf is good for the soul. You get so mad at yourself you forget to hate your enemies.

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

There is no more independence in politics than there is in jail.

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

In time of crisis people want to know that you care more than they care what you 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 theres never been a vegetable that can make people laugh.

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.

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

Even if you are on the right track youll get run over if you just sit there.

There is nothing so stupid as the educated man if you get him off the thing he was educated in.

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.

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

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.

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

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.