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Will Rogers
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Read about cowboy songs here. |
Known for his homespun humor and for lampooning Congress, Will Rogers was born in 1879 in Oolagah Indian territory (now Oklahoma). Part Cherokee, he was taught how to lasso Texas Longhorns by a freed slave on the family ranch. He dropped out of school after the tenth grade to become a cowboy on a cattle drive. He started his show-biz career as a trick rider and roper in Wild West shows in South Africa and Australia. He was listed in the Guinness Book of World Records for throwing three lassos at the same time - one catching a running horse around the neck, another the rider, and the third lassoing the horse's four legs. His feats can be seen in a movie called 'The Ropin' Fool'.
But it was as a humorist and commentator that he made his mark. He starred in vaudeville shows, Broadway musicals, and the Ziegfeld Follies. When audiences applauded the wisecracks he made during his rope tricks, his career began to take off. He worked his act up into full-fledged satire and commentary, beginning with his signature line, "All I know is what I read in the papers." He became known for his cracker-barrel humor, telling the unvarnished truth in plain and simple terms. He made 71 movies, wrote 4,000 syndicated newspaper columns, and authored six books. The first famous radio commentator, his opinions were sought by world leaders.
But he remained a simple man, famous for saying "I never met a man I didn't like." He also figured there was something wrong with anybody who didn't like horses. Will Rogers died in a plane crash in Alaska in 1935.
Here are some of the best lines attributed to Will Rogers:
"You can't say civilization isn't advancing; in every war they kill you in a new way."
"I'm not a real movie star. I've still got the same wife I started out with 28 years ago."
"Live in such a way that you would not be ashamed to sell your parrot to the town gossip."
"Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there."
"A remark generally hurts in proportion to its truth."
"An ignorant person is one who doesn't know what you have just found out."
"An onion can make people cry, but there has never been a vegetable invented to make them laugh."
"The income tax has made more liars out of the American people than golf has."
"A holding company is a thing where you hand an accomplice the goods while the policeman searches you."
"Everything is funny as long as it is happening to somebody else."
"If stupidity got us into this mess, then why can't it get us out?"
"Ancient Rome declined because it had a Senate; now what's going to happen to us with both a Senate and a House?"
"The taxpayers are sending congressmen on expensive trips abroad. It might be worth it except they keep coming back!"
"There's no trick to being a humorist when you have the whole government working for you."
"Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment."
