Will Rogers
195 quotes
Biography
"Diplomacy is the art of saying 'Nice doggie' until you can find a rock."
"Everything is funny, as long as it's happening to somebody else."
"Never miss a good chance to shut up."
"Too many people spend money they haven't earned, to buy things they don't want, to impress people that they don't like."
"All I know is just what I read in the papers, and that's an alibi for my ignorance."
"I never met a man that I didn't like."
"Do the best you can, and don't take life too serious."
"You know, everybody's ignorant, just on different subjects."
"Always drink upstream from the herd."
"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."
"Even if you are on the right track, but just sit there, you will still get run over."
"If you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop digging."
"See they conducted experiments on convicts ... I don't know on what grounds they reason a man in jail is a bigger liar than one out of jail ... The chances are telling the truth is what got him there ... It would be a big aid to humanity, it will never be, for already the politicians are up in arms against it ... It would wreck the very foundation on which our political government is run ... If you ever injected truth into politics you'd have no politics ... Even the ministers are denouncing it now ... Humanity is not yet ready for either real truth or real harmony."
"Papers say: "Congress is deadlocked and can't act." I think that is the greatest blessing that could befall this country."
"You know everybody is ignorant, only on different subjects."
"Heroing is one of the shortest-lived professions there is."
"This election was lost four and five and six years ago not this year. They dident start thinking of the old common fellow till just as they started out on the election tour. The money was all appropriated for the top in the hopes that it would trickle down to the needy. Mr. Hoover was an engineer. He knew that water trickled down. Put it uphill and let it go and it will reach the dryest little spot. But he dident know that money trickled up. Give it to the people at the bottom and the people at the top will have it before night anyhow. But it will at least have passed through the poor fellow's hands. They saved the big banks but the little ones went up the flue."
"When the Judgment Day comes civilization will have an alibi, "I never took a human life, I only sold the fellow the gun to take it with.""
"Sure must be a great consolation to the poor people who lost their stock in the late crash to know that it has fallen in the hands of Mr. Rockefeller, who will take care of it and see it has a good home and never be allowed to wander around unprotected again. 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."
"But it's just as Mr. Brisbane and I have been constantly telling you, "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."
"You can't say that civilization don't advance, however, for in every war they kill you in a new way."
"This would be a great world to dance in if we didn't have to pay the fiddler."
"This country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session as when the baby gets hold of a hammer."
"We are the first nation to starve to death in a storehouse that's overfilled with everything we want."
"I certainly know that [A] comedian can only last till he either takes himself serious or his audience takes him serious and I don't want either of those to happen to me til I am dead (if then)."