Will Rogers (1879–1935,) fully William Penn Adair Rogers, was an American actor, entertainer, rancher, and humorist. Celebrated for pithy and homespun humor and cracker-barrel philosophy, he came to personify the wisdom of the common person.
Born the son of a rancher in Oolagah, Indian Territory (Oklahoma,) Rogers traveled to Buenos Aires and Johannesburg. He was employed as a ranch hand and cowpuncher. He used these skills as a vaudeville headliner with his rope twirling and homespun humor from 1905, appearing at the St Louis World’s Fair (1904) and in the musical The Girl Rangers (1907.)
Rogers’s first Broadway performance was in The Wall Street Girl (1912,) and he later became a regular attraction at the Ziegfeld Follies (1917–18.) By this time, his act had expanded to include homespun philosophy, wisecracking and rustic ruminations. He made several silent films, including Laughing Bill Hyde (1918,) Jubilo (1919,) and Doubling for Romeo (1921.)
Rogers returned to Broadway in Three Cheers (1928) and made They Had to See Paris (1929; his first sound film,) State Fair (1933,) Judge Priest (1934,) and Steamboat Round the Bend (1935.)
Rogers wrote a syndicated column for The New York Times 1922–35, wrote articles for the Saturday Evening Post and made frequent radio broadcasts. He died in a plane crash with aviator Wiley Post in Alaska.
Rogers’s notable works include The Cowboy Philosopher at the Peace Conference (1919,) Political Follies (1929,) and The Autobiography of Will Rogers (1949; compiled by from his writings and sayings by Donald Day.)
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Will Rogers
That’s one thing about a little education. It spoils you for actual work. The more you know the more you think somebody owes you a living.
—Will Rogers
People that pay for things never complain. It’s the guy you give something to that you can’t please.
—Will Rogers
Topics: Business, Complaining
Communism to me is one-third practice and two-thirds explanation.
—Will Rogers
Topics: Communism, Explanation, Socialism
I guess truth can hurt you worse in an election than about anything that can happen to you.
—Will Rogers
I will never joke about old soldiers who try to get to reunions to talk over the war again. To talk of old times with old friends is the greatest thing in the world.
—Will Rogers
Topics: The Military
Be thankful we’re not getting all the government we’re paying for.
—Will Rogers
Topics: Government
Nothing makes a man broad-minded like adversity.
—Will Rogers
Topics: Open-mindedness
A conference is just an admission that you want somebody to join you in your troubles.
—Will Rogers
Topics: Trouble
There should be one day when there is open season on senators.
—Will Rogers
The reason political party platforms are so long is that when you straddle anything it takes a long time to explain it.
—Will Rogers
Topics: Politics
We are always saying: Let the Law take its Course but what we really mean is: Let the Law take OUR Course.
—Will Rogers
Topics: Law
We don’t seem to be able to check crime, so why not legalize it and then tax it out of business?
—Will Rogers
Topics: Justice
A politician is not as narrow-minded as he forces himself to be.
—Will Rogers
Topics: Open-mindedness
The worst thing that happens to you may be the best thing for you if you don’t let it get the best of you.
—Will Rogers
Topics: Adversity
The main thing about being a hero is to know when to die.
—Will Rogers
Topics: Heroes/Heroism, Heroism, Heroes
We can make this thing into a Party, instead of a Memory.
—Will Rogers
An economist’s guess is liable to be as good as anybody else’s.
—Will Rogers
Topics: Economics, Economy
Successful colleges will start laying plans for a new stadium; unsuccessful ones will start hunting a new coach.
—Will Rogers
In the early days of the Indian Territory, there were no such things as birth certificates. You being there was certificate enough.
—Will Rogers
Topics: Life and Living
There is no more interesting place in the world to meet characters than a movie set. If you have lost anybody anywhere in the World and don’t know where they are, they are in Hollywood trying to get in the Movies.
—Will Rogers
Diplomats are just as essential to starting a war as soldiers are to finishing it. You take Diplomacy out of war and the thing would fall flat in a week.
—Will Rogers
Topics: Diplomacy, Soldiers
There is an awful lot of difference between reading something and actually seeing it, for you can never tell, till you see it, just how big a liar History is.
—Will Rogers
Topics: History
Our public men are speaking every day on something, but they ain’t saying anything.
—Will Rogers
Topics: Speakers
Being a hero is about the shortest lived profession on earth.
—Will Rogers
Topics: Heroes/Heroism, Heroism, Heroes
It’s great to be great, but it’s greater to be human.
—Will Rogers
Topics: Humanity, Humankind
All I know is just what I read in the papers, and that’s an alibi for my ignorance.
—Will Rogers
Topics: News, Ignorance
I represent what is left of a vanishing race, and that is the pedestrian…. That I am still able to be here, I owe to a keen eye and a nimble pair of legs. But I know they’ll get me someday.
—Will Rogers
Topics: Driving
The short memories of American voters is what keeps our politicians in office.
—Will Rogers
Topics: Memory
You never know how much a man can’t remember until he is called as a witness.
—Will Rogers
Topics: Memory
There is nothing so stupid as the educated man if you get him off the thing he was educated in.
—Will Rogers
Topics: Professionalism, Experts, Education
This country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session as when the baby gets hold of a hammer.
—Will Rogers
Topics: Government
Andrew Jackson was the first one to think up the idea to promise everybody that if they will vote for you, you will give them an office when you get it, and the more times they vote for you, the bigger the office.
—Will Rogers
Topics: Voting
A comedian can only last ’til he either takes himself serious or his audience takes him serious.
—Will Rogers
Topics: Audiences
There isn’t any finer folks living than a Republican that votes the Democratic ticket.
—Will Rogers
Topics: Elections, Voting
I guess the only way to stop divorce is to stop marriage.
—Will Rogers
Topics: Divorce
Here it is, a New Year. We got to make some resolutions, as well as interest and tax payments in this joyful season. It’s the start of a New Year of trials and tribulations, and if everybody that does anything gets caught, it will be mostly trials.
—Will Rogers
I have no Politics. I am for the Party that is out of Power, no matter which one it is. But I will give you my word that, in case of my appointment, I will not be a Republican; I will do my best to pull with you, and not embarrass you. In fact, my views on European affairs are so in accord with You, Mr. President, that I might almost be suspected of being a Democrat.
—Will Rogers
The whole financial structure of Wall Street seems to rise or fall on the mere fact that the Federal Reserve Bank raises or lowers the amount of interest. Any business that can’t survive a one percent change must be skating on thin ice.
Why even the poor farmer took a raise of another ten percent just to get a loan from the bank, and nobody from the government paid any attention. But you let Wall Street have a nightmare and the whole country has to help to get them back into bed again.
—Will Rogers
Topics: Economics
There ain’t nothing that breaks up homes, country, and nations like somebody publishing their memoirs.
—Will Rogers
Topics: Biography, Legacy
The minute you read something that you can’t understand, you can almost be sure that it was drawn up by a lawyer.
—Will Rogers
Topics: Law, Lawyers
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