Will Rogers Men Quotations

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

Anything important is never left to the vote of the people. We only get to vote on some man; we never get to vote on what he is to do.

It's not what you pay a man, but what he costs you that counts.

This thing of being a hero, about the main thing to it is to know when to die. Prolonged life has ruined more men than it ever made.

That's one good thing about wars. It takes smarter men to figure out who loses 'em than it does to start 'em.

Nothing makes a man or body of men as mad as the truth. If there is no truth in it they laugh it off.

Every man gets an opportunity once in a lifetime.

I have often said in answer to inquiries as to how I got away with kidding some of our public men, that it was because I liked all of them personally, and that if there was no malice in your heart there could be none in your "Gags", and I have always said I never met a man I dident like.

I am proud of the fact there is not a human being that I have got it in for. I never met a man I didn't like.

I never met a man that I didn't like.

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."

Ten men in our country could buy the whole world and ten million can't buy enough to eat.

The greatest loss of time is delay and expectation. I never yet talked to the man who wanted to save time who could tell me what he was going to do with the time he saved.

I bet you, if I had met Trotsky, and had had a chat with him, I would have found him a very interesting and human fellow, for I have never yet met a man I didn't like.

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.

Nothing makes a man, or a body of men, as mad as the truth. If there is no truth in it, they laugh it off.

Every time a woman leaves off something she looks better, but every time a man leaves off something he looks worse.

One of the evils of democracy is, you have to put up with the man you elect whether you want him or not.

Nothing makes a man broad-minded like adversity.

Every time we have an election, we get in worse men and the country keeps right on going. Times have proven only one thing and that is you can't ruin this country even with politics.

It ain't so much what a man doesn't know that causes him so many problems, but what he knows that ain't so.

It's getting so if a man wants to stand well socially, he can't afford to be seen with either the Democrats or the Republicans.

Coolidge made less speeches and got more votes than any man that ever run. (William Jennings) Bryan was listened to and cheered by more people than any single human in politics, and he lost. So there is a doubt just whether talking does you good or harm.

I read where they are going to limit debate in the Senate. It used to be that a man could talk all day, but now, as soon as he tells all he knows, he has to sit down. Most of these birds will just be getting up and nodding now. Why, some of them won't be able to answer roll call.

In Washington, one man could do what ten of them do. There could be only a quarter or a third as many congressmen or senators, and we would pick better ones then. But it's the system that we have always used, and there is no use getting all overcome with perspiration over it. Things kinder run themselves, anyhow.

Funny thing about being a U.S. senator, the only thing the law says you have to be is 30 years old. Not another single requirement. They just figure that a man that old got nobody to blame but himself if he gets caught in there.

You never know how much a man can't remember until he is called as a witness.

Never slap a man who's chewing tobacco.

I'll bet you the time ain't far off when a woman won't know any more than a man.

In Europe public men do resign. But here it's a lost art. You have to impeach 'em.

Long ago when men cursed and beat the ground with sticks, it was called witchcraft. Today it's called golf.

In Washington, one man could do what ten of them do. Things kinder run themselves, anyhow.

We always want the best man to win an election. Unfortunately, he never runs.

Our public men are speaking every day on something, but they ain't saying anything.

We have plenty of Confidence in this country, but we are a little short of good men to place our Confidence in.

Hundreds and hundreds of beautiful horses in the parade and a man without a silver saddle is a vagrant.

The man that found the 726-carat diamond in Africa, received $350,000 for it and wants to buy a farm and silk hat. Well, I can understand a man perhaps being eccentric enough to want to own a silk hat.

I joked about every prominent man of my time, but I never met a man I didn't like.

The deer season just opened. A deer hunter in Ventura Country brought in his first man yesterday.

I see by the papers that they are going to do away with all the nuisance taxes. That means that a man can get a marriage license for nothing.

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.

Our financial ills will never be settled till you fix it so every man will pay an income tax on what he earns, be it a farm, grocery store or municipal or government bonds.

Under capitalism man exploits man; under socialism the reverse is true.

Every man is ignorant - just on different subjects.

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

Everyone wants to vote for the best and most qualified man, but he never runs for office.

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.

Never slap a man who's chewing tobacco. Never kick a cow chip on a hot day. Never miss a good chance to shut up.

If you want to know how a man stands, go among the people who are in his same business.

A liberal is a man who wants to use his own ideas on things in preference to generations who he knows know more than he does.

Of course nothing is ever done about a [presidential] commission report, except, they say, once a man at the state prison for the criminally insane actually read one once clear through. Then he did something about it. He made a bonfire that lasted a week.

The small town is passing. It was the incubator that hatched all our big men, and that's why we haven't got as many big men today as we used to have. Take every small-town-raised leader out of business and you would have nobody left running it but vice-presidents.

A Realtor is an old fashioned Real Estate man with a neck tie. A Real Estate man sold you what you wanted, a Realtor sells you what you don't need. A Real Estate man showed you what you could raise on the land, a Realtor tells you what you can build on it.

It looks to me like any man that wants to be President in times like these lacks something.

Borrowing money on what's called 'easy terms,' is a one-way ticket to the Poor House. If you think it ain't a Sucker Game, why is your Banker the richest man in your Town? Why is your Bank the biggest and finest building in your Town? Instead of passing Bills to make borrowing easy, if Congress had passed a Bill that no Person could borrow a cent of Money from any other person, they would have gone down in History as committing the greatest bit of Legislation in the World.

You can't tell what a man is like or what he is thinking when you are looking at him. You must get around behind him and see what he has been looking at.

There are three types of men in the world. One type learns from books. One type learns from observations. And one type just has to urinate on the electric fence himself.

The man who never makes a mistake must get tired of doing nothing.

Everyone is a self-made man. Only the successful admit it.

I never met a man I didn't get a kind of strange and exciting tingling sensation from.

A woman can make a man feel older or younger than his years if she so chooses. Being a woman is a terribly difficult task since it consists principally in dealing with men. Women were made with a sense of humor so they could love men instead of laughing at them.

If a man ain't nothin' else, then he's an artist. It's the only thing he can claim to be that nobody can prove he ain't.

President Coolidge said, 'I don't want the Government to go into business.' Well, if I was Mr. Coolidge I wouldn't worry over that. The Government never has been accused of being a business man.

I arrived at my hut in Beverly Hills just in time to keep real estate men from plotting off and selling my front yard. They will sell you anything or anybody's in the world as long as they can get a first payment... It used to be only Iowa that was out here but now they have three or four adjoining states interested and they are here, too. Real estate agents - you never saw as many in your life; they are as thick as bootleggers.

If a bank fails in China, they behead the men at the top of it that was responsible... If we beheaded all of ours that were responsible for bank failures, we wouldn't have enough people left to bury the heads.

Asking Europe to disarm is like asking a man in Chicago to give up his life insurance.

We never will have any prosperity that is free from speculation till we pass a law that every time a broker or person sells something, he has got to have it sitting there in a bucket, or a bag, or a jug, or a cage, or a rat trap, or something, depending on what it is he is selling. We are continually buying something that we never get from a man that never had it.

There is no argument in the world that carries the hatred that a relioious belief does. The more learned a man is, the less consideration he has for another man's belief.

There is not a man in the country that can't make a living for himself and family. But he can't make a living for them and his government, too, the way his government is living. What the government has got to do is live as cheap as the people

I don't see why a man shouldn't pay an inheritance tax. If a Country is good enough to pay taxes to while you are living, it's good enough to pay in after you die. By the time you die you should be so used to paying taxes that it would just be almost second nature to you.

Shrewdness in public life all over the world is always honored, while honesty in public men is generally attributed to dumbness and is seldom rewarded.

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 dident 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.

It looks like the financial giants of the world have bungled as much as the diplomats and politicians. This would be a great time in the world for some man to come along that knew something.

A man that don’t love a horse, there is something the matter with him.

A Republican moves slowly. They are what we call conservatives. A conservative is a man who has plenty of money and doesn't see any reason why he shouldn't always have plenty of money. A Democrat is a fellow who never had any, but doesn't see any reason why he shouldn't have some.

An economist is a man that can tell you...what can happen under any given condition, and his guess is liable to be as good as anybody else's too.

You must judge a man's greatness by how much he will be missed.

In a real estate man's eye, the most expensive part of the city is where he has a house to sell

More men have been elected between Sundown and Sunup than ever were elected between Sunup and Sundown.

Texas is a great state. It's the 'Old Man River' of states. No matter who runs it or what happens to it politically, it just keeps rolling along!

I would rather be the man who bought the Brooklyn Bridge than the man who sold it.

Women are not the weak, frail little flowers that they are advertised. There has never been anything invented yet, including war, that a man would enter into, that a woman wouldn't, too.

No man is great if he thinks he is.

I like to hear a man talk about himself because then I never hear anything, but good.

A man who dies without adequate life insurance should have to come back and see the mess he created.

I was born on Nov. 4, which is election day ... my birthday has made more men and sent more back to honest work than any other days in the year.

I would love to see Mr. (Henry) Ford in there, really. I don't know who started the idea that a President must be a Politician instead of a Business man. A Politician can't run any other kind of business. So there is no reason why he can run the U.S. That's the biggest single business in the World.

See where Congress passed a two billion dollar bill to relieve bankers' mistakes. You can always count on us helping those who have lost part of their fortune, but our whole history records nary a case where the loan was for the man who had absolutely nothing. Our theory is to help only those who can get along, even if they don't get a loan.

There are men running governments who shouldn't be allowed to play with matches.

No man can be condemned for owning a dog. As long as he has a dog, he has a friend; and the poorer he gets, the better friend he has.