Top 725 Quotes & Sayings by Will Rogers - Page 9

If you live right, death is a joke to you as far as fear is concerned.

Will somebody please tell me what they do with all the Vice-Presidents a bank has? Why the United States is the biggest business institution in the world, and they got only one Vice-President and nobody has ever found anything for him to do.

Well, another senator rose and said {as they always do} 'Does the gentleman yield?' They always say that - least they call each other 'gentleman' in there. But the tone they put on the word, it would sound more appropriate if they came right out and said 'Would the coyote from Maine yield?' 'cause that's about the way it sounds. Well, then, the other senator says 'I yield' (for if he don't the other guy'll keep on talking anyhow). So the coyote from Maine says 'I yield to...the polecat from Oregon!'

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

The minute you read something and you can't understand it, you can be sure it was written by a lawyer. Then, if you give it to another lawyer to read and he don't know just what it means, then you can be sure it was drawn up by a lawyer. If it's in a few words and is plain, and understandable only one way, it was written by a non-lawyer.

We know lots of things we didn't use to know but we don't know any way to prevent 'em from happening.

America already holds the record for freak movements. Now we have a new one. It's called "Restoring Confidence." Rich men who never had a mission in life outside of watching a stock ticker are working day and night "restoring confidence." Writers are working night shifts, speakers' tables are littered up, ministers are preaching statistics, all on "restoring confidence."

The minute a thing is long and complicated, it confuses. Whoever wrote the Ten Commandments made 'em short. They may not always be kept, but they are understood.

There is a terrible lot of us who don't think that we come from a monkey, but if there are some people who think that they do, why, it's not our business to rob them of what little pleasure they might get out of imagining it.

Politicians are dumb, but they can count to 50% plus one.

There ain't nothing that breaks up homes, country and nations like somebody publishing their memoirs

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.

We're all ignorant, just about different stuff.

With old inflation riding the headlines, I have read till I am bleary-eyed, and I can't get head from tails of the whole thing. ... Now we are living in an age of explanations-and plenty of 'em, too-but no two things that's been done to us have been explained twice the same way, by even the same man. It's and age of in one ear and out the other.

We are always saying: Let the Law take its Course but what we really mean is: Let the Law take OUR Course.

The high income tax come pretty near passing in the Senate. Only lacked about six votes. So it won't be long now. Well, there is millions and millions that are not making it, that would be glad to give up 99 per cent if you would let 'em earn a hundred thousand or more.

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

It takes a lifetime to build a good reputation, but you can lose it in a minute.

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.

Nothing you can't spell will ever work.

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.

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.

Some say, what is the Salvation of the Movies? I say, run 'em backwards. It can't hurt 'em and it's worth a trial.

Your mothers get mighty shocked at you girls nowadays, but in her day, her mother was just on the verge of sending her to reform school.

Foreign relations is an open book-- generally a checkbook.

This stuff they are talking here in Congress costs the people of the United States $44 a page. That's beside what it costs to ship it to the asylums where it's read.

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

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

I was born because it was a habit in those days, people didn't know anything else.

The sales tax is the best and most equitable tax. The gasoline tax, which is nothing but a sales tax, has proven painless, productive and punitive. Everything we buy should have its equal proportion of tax, outside of cheap food and cheap clothes.

There is one thing about Englishmen, they won't fix anything till it's just about totally ruined. You couldn't get the English to fix anything at the start. No! They like to sit and watch it grow worse. Then, when it just looks like the whole thing has gone up Salt Creek, why, the English jump in and rescue it.

Labor leaders don't do much laboring after they are able to lead.

I see where we are starting to pay some attention to our neighbors to the south. We could never understand why Mexico wasn't just crazy about us, for we have always had their good will, and oil and minerals, at heart

Political elections are a good deal like marriages, there's no accounting for anyone's taste.

Everything worthwhile is a good idea, but did you ever notice there is more bad ideas that will work than there is good ones?

Millions and millions of people don't pay an income tax, because they don't earn enough to pay on one, but you pay a land tax whether it ever did or ever will earn you a penny. You should pay on things that you buy outside of bare necessities. I think this sales tax is the best tax we have had in years.

See what will happen if you don't stop biting your fingernails

So the question rises: How much liberty can you get away with? Well, you get no more liberty than you give!

When I make a joke, nobody gets injured... when Congress makes a joke, it's the law.

Congress is deadlocked and can’t act.

It is a good thing that we do not get as much government as we pay for.

Americans are getting like a Ford car, they all have the same exact parts, the same upholstering and make exactly the same noises.

I know things are going to get better in spite of both sides. Then when things do get better, then you'll hear the yell that will go up. The Democrats will swear that recovery was due to them. Now the Republicans, they'll say it was due to them. Nobody wanted to claim the credit for the country blowing up, but wait until it starts picking up and they'll both be on it then. See?

If you want to know when a war might be coming, you just watch the U.S. and see when it starts cutting down on its defenses. It's the surest barometer in the world.

There is two types of Larceny, Petty and Grand. They are supposed to be the same in the eyes of the law, but judges always put a little extra on you for Petty, which is kind of a fine for stupidness.

The farmers can be thankful. Didn't the Farm Board decide in Washington last week that they could have cheaper interest? All the farmers have to do now is to find something new to put up as security.

If everybody (traded his car for a horse) they would be out of debt in a couple of years. Just think, no gas, no tires, no roads to pay for.

America is a land of opportunity and don't ever forget it.

I see a good deal of talk from Washington about lowering taxes-I hope they do get 'em lowered enough so people can afford to pay 'em

How is the government going to get the extra taxes? Out of the rich, or just out of the poor, as usual?

Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there. My folks were Indian. Both my mother and father had Cherokee blood in them. I was born and raised in Indian Territory. 'Course we're not the Americans whose ancestors came over on the Mayflower, but we met them at the boat when they landed.

It's almost worth the Great Depression to learn how little our big men know.

Mona Lisa is the only beauty who went through history and retained her reputation.

Every man is ignorant - just on different subjects.

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

Alexander Hamilton originated the put and take system in our national treasury: the taxpayers put it in, and the politicians take it out

Land taxes is the thing. They got so high that there is no chance to make anything. Not only land but all property tax. You see in the old days, why the only thing they knew how to tax was land, or a house. Well, that condition went along for quite awhile, so even today the whole country tries to run its revenue on taxes on land. They never ask if the land makes anything. "It's land ain't it? Well tax it then."

Some guy invented Vitamin A out of a carrot. I'll bet he can't invent a good meal out of one.

Baseball is a skilled game. It's America's game - it, and high taxes.

I have always noticed that people will never laugh at anything that is not based on truth.