Will Rogers (November 4, 1879 – August 15, 1935) achieved the height of his popularity during the Great Depression. Reading him reveals two things- that he was a keen observer of American life, and that we never learn from our mistakes. As Gore Vidal said, "Happily for the busy lunatics who rule over us, we are permanently the United States of Amnesia. We learn nothing because we remember nothing."
We need to remember people like Will...
A diplomat is an honest man sent abroad to lie for his country.
A government treaty gave Cherokees their land as long as the grass grows and the water flows, but when they discovered oil, they took it back because there was nothin' in the treaty about oil.
A holding company is the people you give your money to while you're being searched.
A remark generally hurts in proportion to its truth.
Almost all I can say for the United States Senate is that it opens with a prayer and closes with an investigation.
Always drink upstream from the herd.
An economist's guess is as good as anyone else's.
Ancient Rome declined because it had a Senate; now what's going to happen to us with both a Senate and a House?
Be thankful we're not getting all the government we're paying for.
Civilization has taught us to eat with a fork, but even now if nobody is around, we use our fingers.
Even if you are on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there.
Government investigations have always contributed more to our amusement than they have to our knowledge.
Half our life is spent trying to find something to do with the time we have rushed through life trying to save.
I don't think you can make a lawyer honest by an act of legislature. You've got to work on his conscience. And his lack of conscience is what makes him a lawyer.
I hope we never live to see the day when a thing is as bad as some of our newspapers make it.
I love a dog. He does nothing for political reasons.
I would rather be the man who bought the Brooklyn Bridge than the man who sold it.
If stupidity got us into this mess, then why can't it get us out?
If there are no dogs in heaven, when I die I want to go where they go.
If we ever pass out as a great nation we ought to put on our tombstone, "America died from a delusion that she had moral leadership."
If we have Senators and Congressmen there that can't protect themselves against the evil temptations of lobbyists, we don't need to change our lobbies, we need to change our representatives.
If you ever injected truth into politics you'd have no politics.
It's not what you pay a man but what he costs you that counts.
Let advertisers spend the same amount of money improving their product that they spend on advertising and they wouldn't have to advertise it.
Liberty don't work as good in practice as it does in speeches.
Never miss a good chance to shut up.
Nothing you can't spell will ever work.
On account of us being a democracy and run by the people, we are the only nation in the world that has to keep a government four years, no matter what it does.
Our Constitution protects aliens, drunks, and U.S. Senators. There ought to be one day (just one) when there is open season on senators.
People are taking the comedians seriously and the politicians as a joke.
People want just taxes more than they want lower taxes. They want to know that every man is paying his proportionate share according to his wealth.
Politics has got so expensive that it takes lots of money to even get beat with.
Politics is applesauce.
Republicans take care of the big money, for big money takes care of them.
Statesmen think they make history; but history makes itself and drags the statesmen along.
Ten men in our country could buy the whole world and ten million can't buy enough to eat.
The American people are a very generous people and will forgive almost any weakness, with the possible exception of stupidity.
The man with the best job in the country is the Vice-President. All he has to do is get up every morning and say "How's the President?"
The more you read and observe about this Politics thing, you got to admit that each party is worse than the other.
The only difference between death and taxes is that death doesn't get worse every time Congress meets.
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.
The schools ain't what they used to be and never was.
There is one rule that works in every calamity. Be it pestilence, war, or famine, the rich get richer and poor get poorer. The poor even help arrange it.
There's no trick to being a humorist when you have the whole government working for you.
This country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session as when the baby gets hold of a hammer.
This would be a great time in the world for some man to come along that knew something.
This would be a great world to dance in if we didn't have to pay the fiddler.
Too many people spend money they haven't earned, to buy things they don't want, to impress people they don't like.
We are the first nation to starve to death in a storehouse that's overfilled with everything we want.
We will never have true civilization until we have learned to recognize the rights of others.
When everybody has got money they cut taxes, and when they're broke they raise 'em. That's statesmanship of the highest order.
You can't say civilization isn't advancing: in every war they kill you in a new way.
You shake a slogan at an American and it's just like showing a hungry dog a bone.
You take religion backed up by commerce and it's awful hard for a heathen to overcome.
You've got to be an optimist to be a Democrat, and you've got to be a humorist to stay one.
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