1. Quotes
  2. Authors
  3. Will Rogers

Will Rogers Quotes
page 2

William Penn Adair "Will" Rogers was a stage and motion picture actor, vaudeville performer, American cowboy, humorist, newspaper columnist, and social commentator.

Known as "Oklahoma's Favorite Son", Rogers was born to a prominent Cherokee Nation family in Indian Territory . He traveled around the world three times, made 71 movies , and wrote more than 4,000 nationally syndicated newspaper columns. By the mid-1930s, the American people adored Rogers. He was the leading political wit of his time, and was the highest paid Hollywood film star. Rogers died in 1935 with aviator Wiley Post, when their small airplane crashed in northern Alaska.

Rogers's vaudeville rope act led to success in the Ziegfeld Follies, which in turn led to the first of his many movie contracts. His 1920s syndicated newspaper column and his radio appearances increased his visibility and popularity. Rogers crusaded for aviation expansion, and provided Americans with first-hand accounts of his world travels. His earthy anecdotes and folksy style allowed him to poke fun at gangsters, prohibition, politicians, government programs, and a host of other controversial topics in a way that was appreciated by a national audience, with no one offended. His aphorisms, couched in humorous terms, were widely quoted: "I am not a member of an organized political party. I am a Democrat." Another widely quoted Will Rogers comment was "I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts." Rogers even provided an epigram on his most famous epigram:



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 dident [sic] like." I am so proud of that, I can hardly wait to die so it can be carved.

✵ 4. November 1879 – 15. August 1935
Will Rogers photo
Will Rogers: 121   quotes 18   likes

Will Rogers Quotes

“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.”

Will Rogers

Daily Telegram #1597, Will Rogers Finds Larnin' Spoils One For Real Work (4 September 1931)
Daily telegrams

Education , Thinking , Learning , Reading

“There is no credit to being a comedian, when you have the whole Government working for you. All you have to do is report the facts. I don't even have to exaggerate.”

Will Rogers

As quoted in Saturday Review (25 August 1962)
Will Rogers, Ambassador of Good Will, Prince of Wit and Wisdom (1935)
Variant: People often ask me, 'Will, where do you get your jokes?' I just tell 'em, 'Well, I watch the government and report the facts, that is all I do, and I don't even find it necessary to exaggerate.
Variant: I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts.

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

Will Rogers

10167
The Autobiography of Will Rogers (1949)

Communication , Idea

“That's one thing about Republican Presidents. They never went in much for plans. They only had one plan. It says "Boys, my head is turned. Just get it while you can."”

Will Rogers

radio broadcast (21 April 1935)
Other

Boy

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

Will Rogers

As quoted in Dreams Come Due : Government and Economics as If Freedom Mattered (1986) by John Galt, p. 235
As quoted in ...

Housing

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

Will Rogers

Remark after the Versailles Peace Conference, as quoted in Wit and Wisdom (1936) edited by Jack Lait
As quoted in ...

War

“Letting the cat outta the bag is a whole lot easier than putting it back.”

Will Rogers

The Manly Wisdom of Will Rogers (2001)

Cats

“You've got to be optimist to be a Democrat, and you've got to be a humorist to stay one.”

Will Rogers

Good Gulf radio show (24 June 1934)
Other

“Papers say: "Congress is deadlocked and can't act." I think that is the greatest blessing that could befall this country.”

Will Rogers

Weekly Article #59, 1924-01-27
Weekly columns

Thinking , Country

“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.”

Will Rogers

Nationally syndicated column number 518, And Here’s How It All Happened (1932), as published in the Tulsa Daily World, 5 December 1932.<ref>
Weekly columns

Money , People , Hope , Thinking

“No party is as bad as its state and national leaders.”

Will Rogers

"I Accept the Nomination", Life magazine, 31 May 1928 http://books.google.com/books?id=zuINAAAAIAAJ&q=%22No+party+is+as+bad+as+its+state+and+national+leaders%22&pg=PA8#v=onepage
As quoted in ...

“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 <!-- (p. 167) -->
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

“We don't know what we want, but we are ready to bite somebody to get it.”

Will Rogers

Daily Telegram number 2768, Mr. Rogers Puts Us Down As A Nation of Fleas (19 June 1935)
Daily telegrams

“We are here just for a spell and then pass on. So get a few laughs and do the best you can. Live your life so that whenever you lose it, you are ahead.”

Will Rogers

Inscribed on the Will Rogers Memorial Building in Claremore, Oklahoma.
Variants: We are all here for a spell; get all the good laughs you can.
As quoted in Peter's Quotations : Ideas for Our Time (1979) by Laurence J. Peter, p. 285
We are all here for a short spell; so get all the good laughs you can.
As quoted in Civilization's Quotations : Life's Ideal (2002) by Richard Alan Krieger, p. 69
As quoted in ...

Life

“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.”

Will Rogers

Daily Telegram #1019, Thoughts Of Will Rogers On The Late Slumps In Stocks (31 October 1929)
Daily telegrams

“Heroing is one of the shortest-lived professions there is.”

Will Rogers

Nationally syndicated column number 114, Monuments Are All Right But Even Heroes Must Eat (1925).
Weekly columns

“I have always said that a conference was held for one reason only, to give everybody a chance to get sore at everybody else. Sometimes it takes two or three conferences to scare up a war, but generally one will do it.”

Will Rogers

Daily Telegram number 2159, Mr. Rogers Has An Idea How Conferences End (5 July 1933) <ref name=telegram4>
Daily telegrams

War , Chance

“A man that don't love a Horse, there is something the matter with him. If he has no sympathy for the man that does love Horses, then there is something worse the matter with him.”

Will Rogers

"A Skinny Dakota Kid Who Made Good"
The Illiterate Digest (1924)

Love , Horse

“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."”

Will Rogers

Daily Telegram #926, A General Digging Out Of Old War Contracts (15 July 1929) <ref name=telegram2>
Daily telegrams

Life

“This country has gotten where it is in spite of politics, not by the aid of it. That we have carried as much political bunk as we have and still survived shows we are a super nation.”

Will Rogers

Daily Telegram #1948, Will Rogers Favors Closing the Campaign Right Now and Letting The Boys Go Fishing (1 November 1932)
Daily telegrams

Country

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

Will Rogers

Daily Telegram #1230, Congress Session, Rogers Says, Is Like Baby Getting A Hammer (4 July 1930)
Daily telegrams

Feeling , Baby , Country

“Personally, I have always felt the best doctor in the world is the veterinarian. He can't ask his patients what is the matter — he's got to just know.”

Will Rogers

As quoted in Ether and me; or "Just relax." (1973)
As quoted in ...

World , Personality

“I have no Politics. I am for the Party that is out of Power, no matter which one it is. But I will give you my word that, in case of my appointment, I will not be a Republican; I will do my best to pull with you, and not embarrass you. In fact, my views on European affairs are so in accord with you, Mr. President, that I might almost be suspected of being a Democrat.”

Will Rogers

Humorous letter to Republican US President Warren Harding, facetiously offering to replace the American ambassador to the Court of St. James in England.
The Illiterate Digest (1924)

“Politics has got so expensive that it takes lots of money to even get beat with.”

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

Money

“The more you read and observe about this Politics thing, you got to admit that each party is worse than the other. The one that's out always looks the best.”

Will Rogers

"Breaking into the Writing Game"
The Illiterate Digest (1924)

Reading

“When you get into trouble 5,000 miles from home, you’ve got to have been looking for it.”

Will Rogers

As quoted in Sanity Is Where You Find It : An affectionate history of the United States in the 20's and 30's (1955) edited by Donald Day.
As quoted in ...

Home

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

Will Rogers

As quoted in Peter's Quotations : Ideas for Our Time (1979) by Laurence J. Peter, p. 258
As quoted in ...

Personality

“I am a peace man. I haven't got any use for wars and there is no more humor in 'em than there is reason for 'em.”

Will Rogers

Daily Telegram (4 December 1931), as quoted in Will Rogers' Daily Telegrams (1979), p. 104; also in Will Rogers Speaks: Over 1,000 Timeless Quotations for Public Speakers (1995) edited by Bryan B. Sterling and ‎Frances N. Sterling, p. 304
Daily telegrams

Peace , War

“When you meet people, no matter what opinion you might have formed about them beforehand, why, after you meet them and see their angle and their personality, why, you can see a lot of good in all of them.”

Will Rogers

On Leon Trotsky Saturday Evening Post (6 November 1926) - note that Rogers specifically spelled the word "dident"
Context: I bet you if I had met him and had a chat with him, I would have found him a very interesting and human fellow, for I never yet met a man that I dident like. When you meet people, no matter what opinion you might have formed about them beforehand, why, after you meet them and see their angle and their personality, why, you can see a lot of good in all of them.

Personality , People