Will Rogers Quotes (1879-1935)

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

“Every Gag I tell must be based on truth. No matter how much I may exaggerate it, it must have a certain amount of Truth. ... Now Rumor travels Faster, but it don't stay put as long as Truth.”

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

“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."”

“My father would have loved this book as Mr. Keith interviewed every person who was important in Dad's life and then wove their memories of him into a story that is timeless and easily read.”

“It will take a hundred years to tell whether he helped us or hurt us, but he certainly didn't leave us where he found us.”

“Ohio claims they are due a president as they haven't had one since Taft. Look at the United States, they have not had one since Lincoln.”

“They offered Babe Ruth the same salary that Mr. Hoover gets. Babe claims he should have more. He can't appoint a commission to go up and knock the home runs; he has to do it all himself.✱”

“Kin Hubbard is dead. To us folks that attempt to write a little humor his death is just like Edison's would be to the world of invention. No man in our generation was within a mile of him, and I am so glad that I didn't wait for him to go to send flowers. I have said it from the stage and in print for twenty years. Just think — only two lines a day, yet he expressed more original philosophy in 'em than all the rest of the paper combined. What a kick Twain and all that gang will get out of Kin.”

“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.”

“Another popular humorist of the day was Will Rogers, who used to do an act where he'd twirl a lasso and absolutely slay his audiences with such wry observations as: "The only thing I know is what I read in the papers." Ha-ha! Get it? Neither do we. Must have been something he did with the lasso.”

“America has never produced anybody quite like him, and there has rarely been an American humorist whose words produced less empty laughter or more sober thought. His interviews with Mussolini and Primo de Rivera help to bear out his contention that European disarmament is a farce, and that the League of Nations is a piece of eyewash designed by some of the big powers to manipulate affairs to their own advantage. Perhaps Will Rogers has done more to educate the American public in world affairs than all the professors who have been elucidating the continental chaos since the Treaty of Versailles.”

“He helped steady millions of drifting people, not only financially through his charity campaigns and his own large personal gifts which he always tried to hide from public knowledge, but mentally and morally as well through the ability to lift people, guide them, make them laugh, and then make them think. Presidents, cowboys, financiers, kings, show people, children- he knew and liked them all and all were genuinely sorry when he died. I think- because of this personal trait which Lincoln had- that Will Rogers is one of the very greatest men who ever lived.”

“In addition to my deep appreciation of his humor the first time that I fully realized Will Rogers' exceptional and deep understanding of political and social problems was when he came home from his European trip in 1926. While I had discussed European matters with many others, both American and foreign, Will Rogers' analysis of affairs abroad was not only more interesting but proved to be more accurate than any other I had heard.”

“Will Rogers was America's most complete human document. He reflected in many ways the heartbeat of America. In thought and manner of appearance and in his daily life he was probably our most typical native born, the closest living approach to what we like to call the true American.”

“There is a curious parallel between Will Rogers and Abraham Lincoln. They were rare figures whom we could call beloved with ease and without embarrassment.”

“The impact upon the people of America at the death of Will Rogers was similar to that produced by the death of Abraham Lincoln.”

“One of the best-known and one of the least-known men in the world. By inclination, a great mixer. By instinct, a hermit.”