Inspirational Quotes by Will Rogers (American Humorist, Actor)

Inspirational Quotations by Will Rogers (American Humorist, Actor)

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

I never expected to see the day when girls would get sunburned in the places they do today.
—Will Rogers
Topics: Women

Politics has become so expensive that it takes a lot of money even to be defeated.
—Will Rogers
Topics: Defeat, Politics

Another way to solve the traffic problems of this country is to pass a law that only paid-for cars be allowed to use the highways.
—Will Rogers
Topics: Driving

The best way out of a difficulty is through it.
—Will Rogers
Topics: Action, Difficulties, Difficulty

I don’t know what humor is.
—Will Rogers
Topics: Ignorance

We don’t know what we want, but we are ready to bite somebody to get it.
—Will Rogers
Topics: Desires

Mona Lisa is the only beauty who went through history and retained her reputation.
—Will Rogers
Topics: Virtues, Virtue

Successful colleges will start laying plans for a new stadium; unsuccessful ones will start hunting a new coach.
—Will Rogers

Do anything in this world but monkey with somebody else’s religion. What reasoning of conceit makes anyone think theirs is right?
—Will Rogers
Topics: Religion

Do the best you can, and don’t take life too serious.
—Will Rogers

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

A conference is just an admission that you want somebody to join you in your troubles.
—Will Rogers
Topics: Trouble

A politician is not as narrow-minded as he forces himself to be.
—Will Rogers
Topics: Open-mindedness

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

Worrying is like paying on a debt that may never come due.
—Will Rogers
Topics: Worry

You’ve got to be an optimist to be a Democrat, and youve got to be a humorist to stay one.
—Will Rogers

Ancient Rome declined because it had a Senate, now what’s going to happen to us with both a House and a Senate?
—Will Rogers
Topics: Government

Live so that you wouldn
—Will Rogers
Topics: Gossip

It’s great to be great, but it’s greater to be human.
—Will Rogers
Topics: Humankind, Humanity

This depression was deep, and you don’t climb out of anything as quick as you fall in.
—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

Fanatical religion driven to a certain point is almost as bad as none at all, but not quite.
—Will Rogers
Topics: Religion

The short memories of American voters is what keeps our politicians in office.
—Will Rogers
Topics: Memory

It doesn’t much signify whom one marries, for one is sure to find out the next morning that it was someone else.
—Will Rogers
Topics: Marriage

I guess truth can hurt you worse in an election than about anything that can happen to you.
—Will Rogers

Get someone else to blow your horn and the sound will carry twice as far.
—Will Rogers
Topics: Praise

Lord, the money we do spend on Government and its not one bit better than the government we got for one-third the money twenty years ago.
—Will Rogers

You know you’ve got to exercise your brain just like your muscles.
—Will Rogers

That’s what makes us a great nation. We take the little things serious, and the big ones as a joke.
—Will Rogers
Topics: Jokes

If you ever injected truth into politics, you would have no politics.
—Will Rogers
Topics: Politics, Truth