As a young boy, I didn't know a Republican from a Democrat, only in one way: If some man or bunch of men rode up to the ranch to sit or stay all night, and my Father set me to watching 'em all the time they was there -- what they did and what they carried off -- I learned they were Republicans.

WILL ROGERS, Never Met a Man I Didn't Like

The Republicans always looked bad three years out of four. But the year they look good is election year. A voter don't expect much. If you give him one good year he is satisfied.

WILL ROGERS, Never Met a Man I Didn't Like

I will admit it has rained more under Republican administrations, that was partially because they have had more administrations than Democrats. There is no less sickness, no less earthquakes, no less progress, no less inventions, no less morality, no less Christianity under one than the other. They are all the same. It won't make 50 cents difference to a one of you. Unless you're foolish enough to bet on it.

WILL ROGERS, Never Met a Man I Didn't Like

Income tax has made more liars out of the American people than golf.

WILL ROGERS, Sanity Is Where You Find It

I tell you folks, all politics is applesauce.

WILL ROGERS, The Illiterate Digest, 1924

Politics is the ruination of the country. Elect me for life, then they won't have to cater to any interest. If you elect one party to power, why the other party don't do any useful work for the next 4 years, only try to work some scheme to get back in. But if they were elected for life they wouldn't have to worry. The minute a man knows he can't get a political job, he may turn to something useful. A business that's doing well don't change people every 4 years. A man don't no more than get into the White House and learn where the Ice Box is than he has to get out again, then he is never any good for hard work again.

WILL ROGERS, Will Rogers at the Ziegfeld Follies

All I know is what I read in the papers.

WILL ROGERS, New York Times, Sep. 30, 1923

Here we are in a country with more wheat, and more corn, more money in the banks, and more cotton, more everything in the world. There's not a product that you can name that we haven't got more of it than any country ever had on the face of the earth and yet we've got people starving. We'll hold the distinction of being the only nation in the history of the world that ever went to the poor house in an automobile. The potter's fields are lined with granaries full of grain. Now if there ain't something cock-eyed in an arrangement like that, then this microphone here in front of me, it's, well, it's a cuspidor, that's all.

WILL ROGERS, "Bacon, Beans & Limousines," radio broadcast, Oct. 1931

Always drink upstream from the herd.

WILL ROGERS, The Manly Wisdom of Will Rogers

This would be a great world to dance in if we didn't have to pay the fiddler.

WILL ROGERS, attributed, Will Rogers (Alworth)

Here a few years ago we was so afraid that the poor people were liable to take a drink, that now we're fixed so they can't even get something to eat.

WILL ROGERS, "Bacon, Beans & Limousines," radio broadcast, Oct. 1931

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

WILL ROGERS, New York Times, Feb. 15, 1925

Be it pestilence, war, or famine, the rich get richer and poor get poorer.

WILL ROGERS, attributed, Diary of America

If you ever injected truth into politics you'd have no politics.

WILL ROGERS, Weekly Article #31, Jul. 15, 1923

Buy land. They ain't making any more of the stuff.

WILL ROGERS, attributed, Land in America: It's Value, Use, and Control (Wolf)

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, Nov. 1, 1932

Why not go out on a limb? That's where the fruit is.

WILL ROGERS, The Reader's Digest, vol. 76, 1960

Everybody is ignorant, only on different subjects.

WILL ROGERS, New York Times, Aug. 31, 1924

Half our life is spent trying to find something to do with the time we have rushed through life trying to save.

WILL ROGERS, New York Times, Apr. 29, 1930

What the country needs is dirtier fingernails and cleaner minds.

WILL ROGERS, The Saturday Evening Post, 1943

Live in such a way that you would not be ashamed to sell your parrot to the town gossip.

WILL ROGERS, attributed, King's Treasury of Dynamic Humor

When you put down the good things you ought to have done, and leave out the bad ones you did do — well, that's Memoirs.

WILL ROGERS, The Autobiography of Will Rogers

There are three kinds of men: The ones that learns by reading. The few who learn by observation. The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence for themselves.

WILL ROGERS, The Manly Wisdom of Will Rogers

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

WILL ROGERS, syndicated newspaper article, Jun. 28, 1931

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, Apr. 21, 1935

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, Will Rogers: Ambassador of Good Will, Prince of Wit and Wisdom

A comedian can only last till he either takes himself serious or his audience takes him serious.

WILL ROGERS, syndicated newpaper article rejecting the idea that he run for President, Jun. 28, 1931

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

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