Will Rogers: Trending quotes (page 5)

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

Will Rogers

As quoted in Wit (2003) by Des MacHale, p. 299
As quoted in ...

War

“There is only one thing that can kill the Movies, and that is education.”

Will Rogers

Source: The Autobiography of Will Rogers (1949), Ch. 6

Education

“The only time people dislike gossip is when you gossip about them.”

Will Rogers

As quoted in The New Speaker's Treasury of Wit and Wisdom (1958) by Herbert Victor Prochnow, p. 190
As quoted in ...
Variant: The only time people dislike gossip is when you gossip about them.

People , Time

“And kid Congress and the Senate, don't scold 'em. They are just children thats never grown up. They don't like to be corrected in company. Don't send messages to 'em, send candy.”

Will Rogers

Advice sent to President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt (2 December 1932)
Other

Children

“You've never in your life seen a picture, I bet any one of you, never seen a picture of one of these old Pilgrims praying when they didn't have a gun right by the side of them. That was to see that he got what he was praying for.”

Will Rogers

radio broadcast (14 April 1935)
Other

Life

“I originated a remark many years ago that I think has been copied more than any little thing that I've every said, and I used it in the FOLLIES of 1922. I said America has a unique record. We never lost a war and we never won a conference in our lives. I believe that we could without any degree of egotism, single-handed lick any nation in the world. But we can't confer with Costa Rica and come home with our shirts on.”

Will Rogers

The Will Rogers Book (1972)

War , World , Home , Thinking

“Our constitution protects aliens, drunks, and U. S. Senators. There ought to be one day (just one) when there is open season on senators.”

Will Rogers

Daily Telegram number 2678, Mr. Rogers Takes Notice Of The Senatorial Storm (6 March 1935)
Daily telegrams

Season

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

Will Rogers

Daily Telegram #1224, Rogers Offers His Version Of The Economic Situation (27 June 1930)
Daily telegrams

World , Dance

“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”

Will Rogers

if then
Daily Telegram #1538, The First Good News of the 1928 Campaign! Mr. Rogers Says He Will Not Run For Anything (28 June 1931) <ref name=telegram3>
Daily telegrams

Dead

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

Will Rogers

Daily Telegram #1355, The First Good News of the 1928 Campaign! Mr. Rogers Says He Will Not Run For Anything (26 November 1930)
Daily telegrams

Death

“The only problem with Boy Scouts is, there aren't enough of them.”

Will Rogers

As quoted in Giving young people a chance to grow (22 Nov 2011)
As quoted in ...
Source: [Marks, Linda, Giving young people a chance to grow, http://www.perrytribune.com/community/article_19a33c04-8c22-5b7e-bd10-ba1a572bc6ac.html, Perry County Tribune, 22 November 2011, 31 January 2015]

Boy , Problem , Scouting

“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.”

Will Rogers

Daily Telegram #1538, The First Good News of the 1928 Campaign! Mr. Rogers Says He Will Not Run For Anything (28 June 1931)
Daily telegrams

Time , Country

“I am not so much concerned with the return on capital as I am with the return of capital.”

Will Rogers

The Prudent Professor: Planning and Saving for a Worry-Free Retirement (2011) by Edwin M. Bridges, Brian D. Bridges;
Forbes Guide to the Markets: Becoming a Savvy Investor (2009) by Forbes, LLC, Marc M. Groz
The National Underwriter, Volume 45 (1941), p. 12: "As Eddie Cantor put it years ago, after getting burned in the stock market, the life insurance policyholder is more interested in the return of his money than in the return on it."
Misattributed

“I doubt if a charging elephant, or a rhino, is as determined, or hard to check, as a socially ambitious mother.”

Will Rogers

Daily Telegram #1808, Mr. Rogers' Heart Goes Out To Our Envoy To St. James's (10 May 1932) in The New York Times, 11 May 1932 http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=FB0A15FA3E5A13738DDDA80994DD405B828FF1D3
Daily telegrams

“This would be a great time in the world for some man to come along that knew something.”

Will Rogers

Daily Telegram #1611, Mr. Rogers Thinks Its Time That A Smart Man Came Along (21 September 1931)
Daily telegrams

World , Time

“We can make this thing into a Party, instead of a Memory.”

Will Rogers

Letter to Al Smith regarding the Democratic party (19 January 1929)
Other

Memory

“Now everything is funny as long as it is happening to somebody Else, but when it happens to you, why it seems to lose some of its Humor, and if it keeps on happening, why the entire laughter kinder Fades out of it.”

Will Rogers

"Warning to Jokers: Lay off the Prince"
The Illiterate Digest (1924)

Laughter

“advertising […] makes you spend money you haven't got for things you don't want.”

Will Rogers

As the Connecticut Yankee Hank Morgan / Sir Boss in the 1931 film A Connecticut Yankee (after Mark Twain). Cf. Ivan G. Shreve Jr: Thrilling days of yesteryear blogspot.de/2009/09 http://thrillingdaysofyesteryear.blogspot.de/2009/09/grey-market-cinema-connecticut-yankee.html. Also quoted in Printers' Ink magazine, volume 156, issue 1 (1931), p. 3 books.google https://books.google.com/books?id=-oULAQAAIAAJ&q=arthur's and Advertising Outdoors Vol. 2, No. 8 (August 1931), p. 19 https://books.google.com/books?id=rZcXAQAAMAAJ&q=definitions, https://books.google.com/books?id=rZcXAQAAMAAJ&q=spend+money = http://www.forgottenbooks.com/readbook_text/Advertising_Outdoors_1000005193/373
As quoted in ...

Money

“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.”

Will Rogers

As quoted in Defending Liars : In Defense of President Bush and the War on Terror in Iraq (2006) by Howard L. Salter, p. 40
As quoted in ...

People , Idea , Country

“When I die, my epitaph or whatever you call those signs on gravestones is going to read: "I joked about every prominent man of my time, but I never met a man I didn't like." I am so proud of that I can hardly wait to die so it can be carved. And when you come to my grave you will find me sitting there, proudly reading it.”

Will Rogers

"One of his most famous and most quoted remarks. First printed in the Boston Globe, June 16, 1930, after he had attended Tremont Temple Baptist Church, where Dr. James W. Brougher was minister. He asked Will to say a few words after the sermon. The papers were quick to pick up the remark, and it stayed with him the rest of his life. He also said it on various other occasions" ~ Paula McSpadden Love 
Variant: I joked about every prominent man in my lifetime, but I never met one I didn't like.
John D. [Rockefeller] sure carried out my old saying, “I never met a man I didn’t like.” Nationally syndicated column number 219, Rogers Gets Six Shiny Dimes From Oil King (1927).
The earliest dated citation of such a remark thus far found in research for Wikiquote is the one from 1926 about Leon Trotsky from the Saturday Evening Post (6 November 1926).
The Will Rogers Book (1972)

Time , Waiting , Reading