William Penn Adair "Will" Rogers (November 4, 1879 – August 15, 1935) was an American cowboy, vaudeville performer, humorist, social commentator and motion picture actor. He was one of the world's best-known celebrities in the 1920s and 1930s. (Click here for full Wikipedia article)
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The money was all appropriated for the top in the hopes that it would trickle down to the needy. Mr. Hoover didn't 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.
The difference between our rich and poor grows greater every year. Our distribution of wealth is getting more uneven all the time. A man can make a million and he is on every page in the morning. But it never tells you who gave up that million he got. You can't get money without taking it from somebody.
There is nothing that keeps poor people poor as much as paying doctor bills.
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.
Ten men in our country could buy the whole world and ten million can't buy enough to eat.
We are the first nation to starve to death in a storehouse that's overfilled with everything we want.
If I was a President and wanted something I would claim I didn't want it. Congress has not given any President anything he wanted in the last ten years. Be against anything and then he is sure to get it.
I have a scheme for stopping war. It's this- no nation is allowed to enter a war till they have paid for the last one.
When you get into trouble five thousand miles from home, you've got to have been looking for it.
I hope some of the men who get the most votes will be elected.
When a party can't think of anything else they always fall back on lower taxes. It has a magic sound to a voter just like Fairyland is spoken of and dreamed of by children. But no child has ever seen it. Neither has any voter ever lived to see the day when his taxes were lowered.
It's awful hard to get people interested in corruption unless they can get some of it.
All we hear is 'What's the matter with the country?' 'What's the matter with the world?' There ain't but one thing wrong with every one of us in the world, and that's selfishness.
Politics has got so expensive that it takes lots of money to even get beat with.
So much money is being spent on the campaigns that I doubt if either man, as good as they are, are worth what it will cost to elect them.
Every guy looks in his pocket and then votes.
Lincoln didn't have a foreign policy. That's why he's Lincoln.
Every nation must have its legalized form of gambling. We have our Wall Street.
I am not a member of any organized party- I am a Democrat.
I tell you folks, all politics is apple sauce.
If Wall Street paid a tax on every 'game' they run, we would get enough revenue to run the government o
It takes nerve to be a Democrat, but it takes money to be a Republican.
It's not what you pay a man but what he costs you that counts.
Nothing will upset a state economic condition like a legislature. It's better to have termites in your house than the legislature.
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.'
The American people are a very generous people and will forgive almost any weakness, with the possible exception of stupidity.
The crime of taxation is not in the taking of it, it's in the way that it's spent.
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.
There's the one thing no nation can ever accuse us of and that is secret diplomacy. Our foreign dealings are an open book. Generally a checkbook.
This country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session as when the baby gets hold of a hammer.
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.
This country is bigger than Wall Street. If they don't believe it, show 'em the map.
This would be a great time in the world for some man to come along that knew something.
We will never have true civilization until we have learned to recognize the rights of others.
Well, they finally stopped us from sending marines to every war that we could hear of. They are having one in Afghanistan. The thing will be over before Congress can pronounce it, much less find out where it is located.
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.
You've got to be optimist to be a Democrat, and you've got to be a humorist to stay one.
Remember, write to your Congressman. Even if he can't read, write to him.
(Click for all Will Rogers quotes.)
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Will Rogers never met Rush Limbaugh.
-Unattributed
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(November 4 is also the birthday of Walter Cronkite.)
Categories: Quotes of the day, Will Rogers
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