Will Rogers Quotes & Sayings

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

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

You know horses are smarter than people. You never heard of a horse going broke betting on people. — Will Rogers

Broad-minded is just another way of saying a fellow is too lazy to form an opinion. — Will Rogers

The difference between death and taxes is death doesn't get worse every time Congress meets. — Will Rogers

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

Here's another way of putting it. Roosevelt wants recovery to start at the bottom. In other words, by a system of high taxes, he wants business to help the little fellow to get started and get some work, and then pay business back by buying things when he's at work. Business says, 'Let everybody alone. Let business alone, and quit monkeying with us, and we'll get everything going for you, and if we prosper, naturally the worker will prosper.' — Will Rogers

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

I argue with wife over what little pieces of real estate investments we should try to pay on and hold, and which to let go back. We always said, "Put it in land, and you can always walk on it." We did, but no buyers would walk on it with us. — Will Rogers

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. — Will Rogers

America is the first country where people go to the poor house in their car. — Will Rogers

When you find youself in a hole - stop digging. — Will Rogers

Our financial ills will never be settled till you fix it so every man will pay an income tax on what he earns, be it a farm, grocery store or municipal or government bonds. — Will Rogers

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. — Will Rogers

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

About all I can say for the United States Senate is that it opens with a prayer and closes with an investigation. — Will Rogers

You can't say civilization dont advance, in every war they kill you in a new way — Will Rogers

I don't know what humor is. — Will Rogers

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. — Will Rogers

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. — Will Rogers

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

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. — Will Rogers

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

What's the matter with the world? Why, there ain't nothing but one word wrong with everyone of us, and that's selfishness. — Will Rogers

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. — Will Rogers

When you are dissatisfied and would like to go back to youth, think of Algebra. — Will Rogers

Samuel Gompers has spent his life trying to keep labor from working too hard and has succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. — Will Rogers

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. — Will Rogers

We don't give our criminals much punishment, but we sure give 'em plenty of publicity. — Will Rogers

Just read the farm relief bill. It's just a political version of Einstein's last theory. If a farmer could understand it, he certainly would know more than to farm. He would be a professor at Harvard. — Will Rogers

I bet any Sunday could be made as popular at church as Easter is if you made 'em fashion shows too. The audience is so busy looking at each other that the preacher just as well recite Gunga Din. — Will Rogers

It is better for some one to think you're a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt. — Will Rogers

Communism to me is one-third practice and two-thirds explanation. — Will Rogers

Andrew Jackson was the first one to think up the idea to promise everybody that if they will vote for you, you will give them an office when you get it, and the more times they vote for you, the bigger the office. — Will Rogers

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

The deer season just opened. A deer hunter in Ventura Country brought in his first man yesterday. — Will Rogers

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

In politics practically everything you hear is scandal, and besides, the funny thing is that the things they are whispering ain't half has bad as the things they have been saying right out loud. — Will Rogers

There is an awful lot of difference between reading something and actually seeing it, for you can never tell, till you see it, just how big a liar History is. — Will Rogers

Farmers spend more time at Conventions than they do plowing. — Will Rogers

Get a sales tax, small on necessities and large on luxuries; then a stiff inheritance tax on the fellow that saves and don't spend. That will get him either way. A tax paid on the day you buy is not as tough as asking you for it the next year when you are broke. — Will Rogers

It's great to be great, but its greater to be human. — Will Rogers

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. — Will Rogers

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

There is one guaranteed formula for failure, and that is to try to please everyone. — Will Rogers

What the country needs is dirtier fingernails and cleaner minds. — Will Rogers

You've got to be (an) optimist to be a Democrat, and you've got to be a humorist to stay one — Will Rogers

The best way out of a difficulty is through it. — Will Rogers

They used to take your horse and if they were caught they got hung for it. Now they take your car, and if they are caught it's a miracle. — Will Rogers

Never kick a cow chip on a hot day. — Will Rogers

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

Wish all the Farmers would move to town one year, that's the only way I know to clear the thing up. — Will Rogers

If you get to thinking you're a person of some influence, try ordering somebody else's dog around. — Will Rogers

Always drink upstream from the herd. — Will Rogers

There is no more independence in politics than there is in jail. — Will Rogers

It looks to me like the candidates are trying to relieve the farmer of his vote, instead of his debts. — Will Rogers

Successful colleges will start laying plans for a new stadium; unsuccessful ones will start hunting a new coach. — Will Rogers

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. — Will Rogers

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

Money, horse racing and women: three things the boys just can't figure out. — Will Rogers

Democrats are the only reason to vote for Republicans — Will Rogers

A vision, without a plan, is just a hallucination. — Will Rogers

The crime of taxation is not in the taking it, it's in the way that it's spent. — Will Rogers

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

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

The government sent the Indians to Oklahoma. They had a treaty that said, 'You shall have this land as long as grass grows and water flows.' It was not only a good rhyme but looked like a good treaty, and it was till they struck oil. Then the Government took it away from us again. They said the treaty only refers to 'Water and Grass; it don't say anything about oil.' — Will Rogers

Now these fellows in Washington wouldn't be so serious and particular if they only had to vote on what they thought was good for the majority of the people in the U.S. That would be a cinch. But what makes it hard for them is every time a bill comes up they have things to decide that have nothing to do with the merit of the bill. The principal thing is of course: What will this do for me personally back home? — Will Rogers

The English should give Ireland home rule - and reserve the motion picture rights. — Will Rogers

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

An economist is a man that can tell you ... what can happen under any given condition, and his guess is liable to be as good as anybody else's too. — Will Rogers

The president says, 'There is lots of people worse off than the Farmers.' I don't know who it could be unless it is the fellow who holds the Mortgages on the Farms. — Will Rogers

We never will have any prosperity that is free from speculation till we pass a law that every time a broker or person sells something, he has got to have it sitting there in a bucket, or a bag, or a jug, or a cage, or a rat trap, or something, depending on what it is he is selling. We are continually buying something that we never get from a man that never had it. — Will Rogers

Wall Street is being investigated, but they are not asleep while it's being done. You see where the Senate took that tax off the sales of stocks, didn't you? Saved 'em $48,000,000. Now, why don't somebody investigate the Senate and see who got to them to get that tax removed? That would be a real investigation. — Will Rogers

Nothing makes a man, or a body of men, as mad as the truth. If there is no truth in it, they laugh it off. — Will Rogers

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. — Will Rogers

Texas is a great state. It's the 'Old Man River' of states. No matter who runs it or what happens to it politically, it just keeps rolling along! — Will Rogers

Mothers are the only race of people that speak the same tongue. A mother in Manchuria could converse with a mother in Nebraska and never miss a word. — Will Rogers

It would drive a person crazy to dope out really what does divide the two parties. Prosperity don't divide the two parties, for under either administration the poor get poorer and the rich get richer. — Will Rogers

The theater is a great equalizer: it is the only place where the poor can look down on the rich. — Will Rogers

When a party can't think of anything else they always fall back on Lower Taxes. It has a magic sound to a voter, just like Fairyland is spoken of and dreamed of by all children. But no child has ever seen it; neither has any voter ever lived to see the day when his taxes were lowered. Presidents have been promising lower taxes since Washington crossed the Delaware by hand in a row boat. But our taxes have gotten bigger and their boats have gotten larger until now the President crosses the Delaware in his private yacht. — Will Rogers

Know what you're doing, love what you're doing, and believe in what you're doing. — Will Rogers

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

The trouble with Democrats is that they all want to run for President — Will Rogers

We have the best Congress that money can buy. — Will Rogers

Hundreds and hundreds of beautiful horses in the parade and a man without a silver saddle is a vagrant. — Will Rogers

We have killed more people celebrating our independence day than we lost fighting for it. — Will Rogers

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

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. — Will Rogers

Steak on the plate went up. Steak on the hoof went down. — Will Rogers

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. — Will Rogers

Ability is all right but if it is not backed up by honesty and public confidence you will never be a successful person. The best a man can do is to arrive at the top in his chosen profession. I have always maintained that one profession is deserving of as much honor as another provided it is honorable. — Will Rogers

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

A woman can make a man feel older or younger than his years if she so chooses. Being a woman is a terribly difficult task since it consists principally in dealing with men. Women were made with a sense of humor so they could love men instead of laughing at them. — Will Rogers

I love words but I don't like strange ones. You don't understand them and they don't understand you. Old words is like old friends, you know 'em the minute you see 'em. — Will Rogers

Politics is applesauce. — Will Rogers

When should a college athlete turn pro? Not until he has earned all he can in college as an amateur. — Will Rogers

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

Get all the good laughs you can. — Will Rogers

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

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. — Will Rogers