WILL ROGERS Quotes

Will Rogers is right next to Mark Twain as America's best humorist. Born in November 130 years ago near Oogolah in the then Indian Territory, he reigned as America's humorist philosopher until his untimely death in an airplane crash.

To celebrate his humor and his wonderful insight, here are some of his best quotations, in no particular order.

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

What the country needs is dirtier fingernails and cleaner minds.

A fool and his money are soon elected.

When ignorance gets started it knows no bounds.

You've got to go out on a limb sometimes because that's where the fruit is.

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

A remark generally hurts in proportion to its truth.

Our foreign policy is an open book - a checkbook

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

Worrying is like paying on a debt that may never come due.

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

We are all here for a spell, get all the good laughs you can.

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

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

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.

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.

Our constitution protects aliens, drunks and U.S. Senators.

There are three kinds of men. The one that learns by reading. The few who learn by observation. The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence for themselves.

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

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

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.

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

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.

The only difference between death and taxes is that death doesn't get worse every time Congress meets.

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

The best way out of a difficulty is through it.

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.

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

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

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.

Make crime pay. Become a lawyer.

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

Liberty doesn't work as well in practice as it does in speeches.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Everybody is ignorant, only on different subjects.

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

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

Get someone else to blow your horn and the sound will carry twice as far.

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

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