William Penn Adair "Will" Rogers (November 4, 1879 — August 15, 1935) was an American cowboy, comedian, humorist, social commentator, vaudeville performer and actor and one of the best-known celebrities in the 1920s and 1930s.
Known as Oklahoma's favorite son, Rogers was born to a prominent Indian Territory family. He traveled around the world three times, made 71 movies (50 silent films and 21 "talkies"), wrote more than 4,000 nationally-syndicated newspaper columns, and became a world-famous figure. By the mid-1930s, Rogers was adored by the American people. He was the leading political wit of the Progressive Era, and was the top-paid movie star in Hollywood at the time. Rogers died in 1935 with aviator Wiley Post, when their small airplane crashed near Barrow, Alaska.
His vaudeville rope act led to success in the Ziegfeld Follies, which in turn led to the first of his many movie contracts. His 1920s syndicated newspaper column and his radio appearances increased his visibility and popularity. Rogers crusaded for aviation expansion, and provided Americans with first-hand accounts of his world travels. His earthy anecdotes and folksy style allowed him to poke fun at gangsters, prohibition, politicians, government programs, and a host of other controversial topics in a way that was readily appreciated by a national audience, with no one offended. His short aphorisms, couched in humorous terms, were widely quoted; one example is his well-known quip, "I am not a member of an organized political party. I am a Democrat."
Rogers even provided an epigram on his most famous epigram:
- 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."
- Rogers, Will. Letters of a Self-Made Diplomat to His President (1926) online edition
- Rogers, Will, and Joseph H. Carter. Never Met a Man I Didn't Like (1991) excerpt and text search
- Rogers, Will. Will Rogers at the Ziegfeld Follies. ed. by Arthur Frank Wertheim, (1992). 288 pp.
- Rogers, Will. Will Rogers' Weekly Articles. Vol. 1, The Harding/Coolidge Years, 1922-1925. ed. by James M. Smallwood, (1980). 431 pp.
- Rogers, Will. Will Rogers' Weekly Articles. Vol. 2: The Coolidge Years, 1925-1927. ed. by Steven K. Gragert, (1980). 368 pp.
- Rogers, Will. Will Rogers' Weekly Articles. Vol. 3: The Coolidge Years, 1927-1929. ed. by Steven K. Gragert, (1981). 304 pp.
- Rogers, Will. Will Rogers' Weekly Articles. Vol. 4: The Hoover Years, 1929-1931. ed. by Steven K. Gragert, (1981). 278 pp.
- Rogers, Will. Will Rogers's Daily Telegrams. Vol. l, The Coolidge Years, 1926-1929. ed. by James M. Smallwood, 1978. 453 pp.
- Rogers, Will. Will Rogers' Daily Telegrams. Vol. 4, The Roosevelt Years, 1933-1935. ed. by James M. Smallwood, (1979). 457 pp.
- Rogers, Will. Convention Articles of Will Rogers. ed. by Joseph A. Stout, 1976. 174 pp.
- Rogers, Will. The Writings of Will Rogers. Volume 3: Illiterate Digest. ed. by Joseph A. Stout, Jr., 1974. 230 pp. online edition
- Rogers, Will. Autobiography (1948), ed. by Donald Day; 410pp; online edition
- Rogers, Will. Rogers-isms: the Cowboy Philosopher on the Peace Conference, (1919). Online at Project Gutenberg
- Sterling, Bryan B., and Frances N. Sterling, eds. Will Rogers Speaks: Over 1,000 Timeless Quotations for Public Speakers (And Writers, Politicians Comedians, Browsers) (1995).
- The Papers of Will Rogers
"A difference of opinion is what makes horse racing and missionaries.""A fool and his money are soon elected.""A holding company is a thing where you hand an accomplice the goods while the policeman searches you.""A man only learns in two ways, one by reading, and the other by association with smarter people.""A remark generally hurts in proportion to its truth.""About all I can say for the United States Senate is that it opens with a prayer and closes with an investigation.""Advertising is the art of convincing people to spend money they don't have for something they don't need.""Alexander Hamilton started the U.S. Treasury with nothing, and that was the closest our country has ever been to being even.""All I know is just what I read in the papers, and that's an alibi for my ignorance.""America is a nation that conceives many odd inventions for getting somewhere but it can think of nothing to do once it gets there.""America is becoming so educated that ignorance will be a novelty. I will belong to the select few.""An economist's guess is liable to be as good as anybody else's.""An ignorant person is one who doesn't know what you have just found out.""An onion can make people cry but there's never been a vegetable that can make people laugh.""Ancient Rome declined because it had a Senate, now what's going to happen to us with both a House and a Senate?""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.""Be thankful we're not getting all the government we're paying for.""Being a hero is about the shortest-lived profession on earth.""Buy land. They ain't making any more of the stuff.""Chaotic action is preferable to orderly inaction.""Communism to me is one-third practice and two-thirds explanation.""Democrats never agree on anything, that's why they're Democrats. If they agreed with each other, they would be Republicans.""Diplomacy is the art of saying "Nice doggie" until you can find a rock.""Diplomats are just as essential to starting a war as soldiers are for finishing it... You take diplomacy out of war, and the thing would fall flat in a week.""Do the best you can, and don't take life too serious.""Don't gamble; take all your savings and buy some good stock and hold it till it goes up, then sell it. If it don't go up, don't buy it.""Don't let yesterday use up too much of today.""Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there.""Even though you are on the right track - you will get run over if you just sit there.""Everybody is ignorant, only on different subjects.""Everything is changing. People are taking their comedians seriously and the politicians as a joke.""Everything is funny, as long as it's happening to somebody else.""Get someone else to blow your horn and the sound will carry twice as far.""Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment.""Half our life is spent trying to find something to do with the time we have rushed through life trying to save.""I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a Democrat.""I bet after seeing us, George Washington would sue us for calling him "father."""I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts.""I guess there is nothing that will get your mind off everything like golf. I have never been depressed enough to take up the game, but they say you get so sore at yourself you forget to hate your enemies.""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.""I never expected to see the day when girls would get sunburned in the places they now do.""I read about eight newspapers in a day. When I'm in a town with only one newspaper, I read it eight times.""I'm not a real movie star. I've still got the same wife I started out with twenty-eight years ago.""If advertisers spent the same amount of money on improving their products as they do on advertising then they wouldn't have to advertise them.""If I studied all my life, I couldn't think up half the number of funny things passed in one session of congress.""If Stupidity got us into this mess, then why can't it get us out?""If the other fellow sells cheaper than you, it is called dumping. 'Course, if you sell cheaper than him, that's mass production.""If you can build a business up big enough, it's respectable.""If you ever injected truth into politics you have no politics.""If you make any money, the government shoves you in the creek once a year with it in your pockets, and all that don't get wet you can keep.""If you want to be successful, it's just this simple. Know what you are doing. Love what you are doing. And believe in what you are doing.""In Hollywood the woods are full of people that learned to write but evidently can't read. If they could read their stuff, they'd stop writing.""In Hollywood you can see things at night that are fast enough to be in the Olympics in the day time.""Instead of giving money to found colleges to promote learning, why don't they pass a constitutional amendment prohibiting anybody from learning anything? If it works as good as the Prohibition one did, why, in five years we would have the smartest race of people on earth.""It isn't what we don't know that gives us trouble, it's what we know that ain't so.""It's a good thing we don't get all the government we pay for.""It's easy being a humorist when you've got the whole government working for you.""It's not what you pay a man, but what he costs you that counts.""Last year we said, 'Things can't go on like this', and they didn't, they got worse.""Let advertisers spend the same amount of money improving their product that they do on advertising and they wouldn't have to advertise it.""Lettin' the cat outta the bag is a whole lot easier 'n puttin' it back in.""Liberty doesn't work as well in practice as it does in speeches.""Live in such a way that you would not be ashamed to sell your parrot to the town gossip.""Make crime pay. Become a lawyer.""Money and women are the most sought after and the least known about of any two things we have.""Never let yesterday use up too much of today.""Now if there is one thing that we do worse than any other nation, it is try and manage somebody else's affairs.""Ohio claims they are due a president as they haven't had one since Taft. Look at the United States, they have not had one since Lincoln.""On account of being a democracy and run by the people, we are the only nation in the world that has to keep a government four years, no matter what it does.""One Ad is worth more to a paper than forty Editorials.""One-third of the people in the United States promote, while the other two-thirds provide.""Our constitution protects aliens, drunks and U.S. Senators.""People are getting smarter nowadays; they are letting lawyers, instead of their conscience, be their guide.""People who fly into a rage always make a bad landing.""People's minds are changed through observation and not through argument.""Politics has become so expensive that it takes a lot of money even to be defeated.""Politics is applesauce.""Prohibition is better than no liquor at all.""So let's be honest with ourselves and not take ourselves too serious, and never condemn the other fellow for doing what we are doing every day, only in a different way.""So live that you wouldn't be ashamed to sell the family parrot to the town gossip.""Take the diplomacy out of war and the thing would fall flat in a week.""The 1928 Republican Convention opened with a prayer. If the Lord can see His way clear to bless the Republican Party the way it's been carrying on, then the rest of us ought to get it without even asking.""The best way out of a difficulty is through it.""The difference between a Republican and a Democrat is the Democrat is a cannibal they have to live off each other, while the Republicans, why, they live off the Democrats.""The farmer has to be an optimist or he wouldn't still be a farmer.""The fellow that can only see a week ahead is always the popular fellow, for he is looking with the crowd. But the one that can see years ahead, he has a telescope but he can't make anybody believe that he has it.""The income tax has made liars out of more Americans than golf.""The man with the best job in the country is the vice-president. All he has to do is get up every morning and say, "How is the president?"""The more that learn to read the less learn how to make a living. 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.""The more you observe politics, the more you've got to admit that each party is worse than the other.""The only difference between death and taxes is that death doesn't get worse every time Congress meets.""The only time people dislike gossip is when you gossip about them.""The only way you can beat the lawyers is to die with nothing.""The schools ain't what they used to be and never was.""The time to save is now. When a dog gets a bone, he doesn't go out and make a down payment on a bigger bone. He buries the one he's got.""The United States never lost a war or won a conference.""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.""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.""There is no more independence in politics than there is in jail.""There is nothing so stupid as the educated man if you get him off the thing he was educated in.""There ought to be one day - just one - when there is open season on senators.""There's no trick to being a humorist when you have the whole government working for you.""There's only one thing that can kill the movies, and that's education.""Things ain't what they used to be and never were.""Things in our country run in spite of government, not by aid of it.""This country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session as when the baby gets hold of a hammer.""This thing of being a hero, about the main thing to it is to know when to die.""We are all here for a spell, get all the good laughs you can.""We can't all be heroes, because somebody has to sit on the curb and applaud when they go by.""We don't seem to be able to check crime, so why not legalize it and then tax it out of business?""We will never have true civilization until we have learned to recognize the rights of others.""What the country needs is dirtier fingernails and cleaner minds.""When ignorance gets started it knows no bounds.""When should a college athlete turn pro? Not until he has earned all he can in college as an amateur.""When the Oakies left Oklahoma and moved to California, it raised the I.Q. of both states.""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.""Why don't they pass a constitutional amendment prohibiting anybody from learning anything? If it works as well as prohibition did, in five years Americans would be the smartest race of people on Earth.""Worrying is like paying on a debt that may never come due.""You can't say civilization don't advance... in every war they kill you in a new way.""You've got to go out on a limb sometimes because that's where the fruit is."
