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.

 

There is one thing in common with all revolutions (in fact they are pretty near like wars in that respect) nobody ever knows what they are fighting about.

 

You can be killed just as dead in an unjustified war as you can in one protecting your own home.

 

America is a land of opportunity and don’t ever forget it.

 

A Man only learns by two things, one is reading, and the other is association with smarter people.

 

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

 

We don’t have to worry about anything. No nation in the history of the world was ever sitting as pretty. If we want anything, all we have to do is go and buy it on credit.

 

This would be a great time in the world for some man to come along that knew something.

 

We will never have true civilization until we have learned to recognize the rights of others.

 

Mothers are the only race of people that speak the same tongue. A mother in Manchuria could converse with a mother in Nebraska and never miss a word.

 

My ancestors didn’t come over on the Mayflower, but they met the boat.

 

Villains are getting as thick as college degrees and sometimes on the same fellow.

 

They want peace. But they want a gun to get it with.

 

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

 

There ain’t nothing to life but satisfaction.

 

No man is great if he thinks he is.

 

I maintain that it should cost as much to get married as it does to get divorced. Make it look like marriage is worth as much as divorce, even if it ain’t. That would also make the preachers financially independent like it has the lawyers.

 

Remember, write to your Congressman. Even if he can’t read, write to him.

 

You got to sorter give and take in this old world.

 

For that's all there is to success is satisfaction.

 

I never met a man I didn’t like.

 

We shouldn’t elect a President. We should elect a magician.

 

Why don’t they pass a Constitutional Amendment prohibiting anybody from learning anything? If it works as good as Prohibition did, in five years we will have the smartest people on earth.

 

I am no believer in this “hard work, perseverance, and taking advantage of your opportunities” that these Magazines are so fond of writing some fellow up in. The successful don’t work any harder than the failures. They get what is called in baseball the breaks.

 

Some people spend a lifetime juggling with words, with not an idea in a carload.

 

This country is bigger than Wall Street. If they don’t believe it, show ’em the map.

 

What constitutes a life well spent, anyway? Love and admiration from your fellow men is all that any one can ask.

 

I am just an old country boy in a big town trying to get along. I have been eating pretty regular and the reason I have been is because I have stayed an old country boy.

 

America can carry herself and get along in pretty fair shape, but when she stops and picks up the whole world and puts it on her shoulders she just can’t “get it done.”

 

Let this country get hungry and they are going to eat, no matter what happens to budgets, income taxes or Wall Street. Washington mustn’t forget who rules when it comes to a show down.

 

We elect our Presidents, be they Republican or Democrat, then start daring ’em to make good.

 

It takes nerve to be a Democrat, but it takes money to be a Republican.

 

When newspapers knock a man a lot, there is sure to be a lot of good in him.

 

There ought to be a law against anybody going to Europe until they had seen the things we have in this country.

 

Somebody is always telling us in the papers how to prevent war. There is only one way in the World to prevent war, and that is, FOR EVERY NATION TO TEND TO ITS OWN BUSINESS.

 

Live your life so that whenever you lose, you are ahead.

 

The Republican platform promises to do better. I don’t think they have done so bad. Everybody’s broke but them.

 

Democrats take the whole thing as a joke. Republicans take it serious but run it like a joke.

 

I will admit it has rained more under Republican administrations. That was partially because they have had more administration than Democrats.

 

The platform will always be the same, promise everything, deliver nothing.

 

A cannibal is a good deal like a Democrat, they are forced to live off each other.

 

Republicans take care of big money, for big money takes care of them.

 

I have not aligned myself with any party. Sitting tight waiting for an attractive offer.

 

I generally give the party in power, whether Republican or Democrat, the more digs because they are generally doing the country more damage. The party in power drawing a salary is to be knocked.

 

I hope some of the men who get the most votes will be elected.

 

A flock of Democrats will replace a mess of Republicans. It won’t mean a thing. They will go in like all the rest of ’em. Go in on promises and come out on alibis.

 

The Republicans mopped up, the Democrats gummed up, and I will now try and sum up. Things are terribly dull now. We won’t have any more serious comedy until Congress meets.

 

You’ve got to admit that each party is worse than the other. The one that’s out always looks the best.

 

If a man wants to stand well socially, he can’t afford to be seen with either the Democrats or the Republicans.

 

Republicans want a man that can lend dignity to the office. Democrats want a man that will lend some money.

 

Republicans have always been the party of big business. The Democrats of small business. So you just take your pick. The Democrats have their eye on a dime and the Republicans on a dollar.

 

If by some divine act of providence we could get rid of both parties and hire some good men, like any other good business does, that would be sitting pretty.

 

Both parties have their good times and bad times at different times. Good when they are out. Bad when they are in.

 

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.

 

You could keep politics clean if you could figure out some way so your government never hired anyone.

 

No mathematician in this country has ever been able to figure out how many hundred straw votes it takes to equal one legitimate vote.

 

No animal in the world gets quite as hungry as a Democrat. He would rather make a speech than a dollar.

 

The whole trouble with the Republicans is their fear of an increase in income tax, especially on higher incomes.

 

Sometimes it makes you think we don’t need a different man as much as we need different advisors for the same man.

 

If we could just send the same bunch of men to Washington for the good of the nation and not for political reasons, we could have the most perfect government in the world.

 

The truth can hurt you worse in an election than about anything that could happen to you.

 

More men have been elected between sundown and sunup, than ever were elected between sunup and sundown.

 

Politics ain’t worrying this country one tenth as much as parking space.

 

A politician is just like a pickpocket. It’s almost impossible to get one to reform.

 

Party politics is the most narrow minded occupation in the World.

 

If you ever injected truth into politics you have no politics.

 

Ain’t it funny how many hundreds of thousands of soldiers we can recruit with nerve. But we can’t find one politician in a million with backbone.

 

Most people and actors appearing on the stage have some writer to write their material. Congress is good enough for me. They have been writing my material for years.

 

All Senators travel a lot. They all try to keep away from home as much as they can.

 

Why sleep at home when you can sleep in Congress?

 

Be a Politician—no training necessary.

 

It is easier to fool ’em in Washington than at home. So why not be a Senator.

 

Get in the cabinet; you won’t have to stay long.

 

Be a Republican and sooner or later you will be a Postmaster.

 

You know how Congress is. They’ll vote for anything if the thing they vote for will turn around and vote for them.

 

Papers say: “Congress is deadlocked and can’t act.” I think that is the greatest blessing that could befall this country.

 

I joke about prominent men but at heart I believe in ’em. I do think there is time when traces of “dumbness” crop up in official life but not crookedness.

 

One seldom ever remembers meeting a Vice-President.

 

[E]lections are a good deal like marriages, there’s no accounting for anyone’s taste.

 

It’s awful hard to get people interested in corruption unless they can get some of it.

 

It’s going to be hard to make an issue of corruption. It’s like the poor, it’s always been with us.

 

We cuss the lawmakers. But I notice we’re always perfectly willing to share in any of the sums of money that they might distribute.

 

Everybody nowadays is suggesting ways of getting prosperous on somebody else’s money.

 

Being serious or being a good fellow has got nothing to do with running this country. If the breaks are with you, you could be a laughing hyena and still have a great administration.

 

There is people so excited over this election that they think the President has something to do with running this country.

 

If I was a President and wanted something I would claim I didn’t want it. Congress has not given any President anything he wanted in the last 10 years. Be against anything and then he is sure to get it.

 

Politics is the only sporting event in the world where they don’t pay off for second money; a man to run second in any other event in the world it’s an honor. But any time he runs second for President it’s not an honor. It’s a pity.

 

A president should hold office six years with no re-election. Stop this thing of a President having to lower his dignity and go trooping around asking for votes to keep him another term. Six years give him time to do something. Then pay the man when he goes out one-half of his salary for life.

 

George Washington was a politician and a gentleman. That’s a rare combination.

 

Lincoln didn’t have a foreign policy. That’s why he’s Lincoln.

 

Statistics have proven that the surest way to get anything out of the public mind and never hear of it again is to have a Senate Committee appointed to look into it.

 

They ought to pass a rule in this country in any investigations if a man can’t tell the truth the first time he shouldn’t be allowed to try again.

 

You wire the state or the federal government that our cow or dog is sick and they will send out experts from Washington and appropriate money to eradicate the cause. You wire them that your baby has the diphtheria or scarlet fever and see what they do....why can’t we get a government to at least do for a child’s protection, what they do for a cow or a hog?

 

Just raid the national treasury enough and you will soon be referred to as a “statesman.”

 

After a football game in Lima, Peru, five were killed. Up here we don’t kill our football players. We make coaches out of the smart ones and send the others to the Legislature.

 

The American people will vote dry as long as they are able to stagger to the polls.

 

The more education he gets the less apt he is to be a Democrat and if he is very highly educated he will see the apple sauce in both parties.

 

Confucius perspired out more knowledge than the U. S. Senate has vocalized out in the last 50 years.

 

Farmers are learning the relief they get from the sky beats what they get from Washington.

 

None of them from any party are going to purposely ruin the country. They will all do the best they can.

 

This country has gotten where it is in spite of politics, not by the aid of it.

 

People don’t change under governments. Governments change. People remain the same.

 

One of the evils of democracy is you have to put up with the man you elected whether you want him or not. That’s why we call it democracy.

 

Every guy looks in his pocket and then votes.

 

The short memories of American voters is what keeps our politicians in office.

 

[O]nce a man wants to hold a Public Office, he is absolutely no good for honest work.

 

As bad as we sometimes think our government is run, it is the best run I ever saw.

 

The high office of President has been degenerated into two ordinarily fine men being goaded by political leeches into saying things that if they were in their right minds they wouldn’t think of saying.

 

In this country people don’t vote for, they vote against.

 

A statesman is a man that can do what the politician would like to do but can’t because he is afraid of not being elected.

 

There is very little dignity, very little sportsmanship, or very little anything in politics only get the job and hold it.

 

When an Office Holder, or one that has been found out, can’t think of anything to deliver a speech on, he always falls back on the good old subject, AMERICANISM.

 

Nothing will upset a state economic condition like a legislature. It’s better to have termites in your house than the legislature.

 

Never blame a legislative body for not doing something. When they do nothing, they don’t hurt anybody. It’s when they do something is when they get dangerous.

 

The money we spend on government. And it’s not a bit better government than we got for one-thirds the money two years ago.

 

Slogan: Be a politician; no training necessary.

 

All there is to politics is trading. That’s why politics is not as good as it was years ago. They don’t have as many old-time horse traders in there. These we got are just amateurs. They’re crude with their trades. There is really no “finesse.” You might not get that. “Finesse” is a French word and it means sneaking it over.

 

A smart state nowadays will appoint all their highway men from one place. Then one road will do all of ’em.

 

What this country needs is more working men and fewer politicians.

 

That’s the trouble with a politician’s life somebody is always interrupting it with an election.

 

Imagine a man in public office that everybody knew where he stood. We wouldn’t call him a statesman, we would call him a curiosity.

 

There should be a tax on every man that wanted to get a government appointment or be elected to office. In two years that tax alone would pay our national debt.

 

A conservative is a man who has plenty of money and doesn’t see any reason why he should always have plenty of money. A Democrat is a fellow who never had any money but doesn’t see why he shouldn’t.

 

There is no more independence in politics than there is in jail. They are always yapping about “public service.” It’s public jobs that they are looking for.

 

I love animals and I love politicians. I like to watch both of ’em play either back home in their native state or after they have been captured and sent to a zoo or to Washington.

 

The United States Senate opens with a prayer and closes with an investigation.

 

The Ways and Means Committee is supposed to find ways to divide up the means.

 

A lobbyist is a person that is supposed to help a politician make up his mind—not only help him but pay him.

 

The biggest praise that a humorist can have is to get your stuff in The Congressional Record. Just think, my name will be right alongside all those other big humorists.

 

I like to make jokes and kid about the senators. They are a never-ending source of amusement, amazement and discouragement. But the rascals, when you meet ’em they are mighty nice fellows. It must be something in the office that makes them so ornery sometimes. When you see what they do official, you want to shoot ’em. But he when looks at you and grins so innocently, you kinder want to kiss him.

 

There is no race of people in the world that can compete with a senator for talking. If I went to the Senate, I couldn’t talk fast enough to answer roll call.

 

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 there.

 

It won’t be no time until some woman will become so desperate politically and lose all prospectus of right and wrong and maybe go from bad to worse and finally wind up in the Senate. Men gave ’em the right to vote but never meant for them to take it seriously. But being women they took the wrong meaning and did.

 

It must be nice to belong to some legislative body and just pick money out of the air.

 

Democrats, you can’t shame them into even dying. They would keep on living just to spite the Republicans.

 

Outside of traffic, there is nothing that has held this country back as much as committees.

 

Everybody in Washington seems to be apologizing to each other. In Washington they just generally figure that one hatred offsets the other and they are both even.

 

These baccalaureate addresses given to graduates don’t offer ’em much encouragement outside of advising ’em to vote the straight Republican ticket.

 

This country just civic luncheoned itself into depression. If they will all go home and eat with their own families, they will not only get their first good lunch in years, but will be surprised how much more intelligently their own wife can talk than the “speaker of the day.”

 

I love a dog, he does nothing for political reasons.

 

Tax relief, farm relief, flood relief, dam relief—none of these have been settled, but they are getting them in shape for consideration at the next session of Congress with the hope that those needing relief will perhaps have conveniently died in the meantime.

 

A President-elect’s popularity is the shortest lived of any public man. It only lasts till he picks his Cabinet.

 

I have looked politics and the movies both over and, while they have much in common I believe politics is the most common, so I will stay with the movies.

 

I have read all Presidential speeches on both sides up to now, and the winner is the man smart enough to not make any more. There is a great chance for a “silent” third party.

 

There is not a voter in America that twenty-four hours after any speech was made could remember two sentences in it.

 

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.

 

The more I see of politics...the more I wonder what in the world any man would ever want to take it up for. Then some people wonder why the best men of a community are not the office holders.

 

Our Public men take themselves so serious. It just looks like they are stoop-shouldered from carrying our Country on their backs.

 

Everybody is excited over who will win the election in Chicago. The side with the most machine guns will win it.

 

The Democrats are having a lot of fun exposing the Republican campaign corruptions, but they would have a lot more fun if they knew where they could lay their hands on some of it themselves for next November.

 

Been reading Sunday’s casualty lists from automobiles. It looks like everybody gets run over but Presidential candidates. Is there no justice in the world?

 

The farmers starve three years out of four but the good year is always election year. It really looks like the Lord was in cahoots with the Republicans, but if He is that would make you almost lose faith in Him.

 

No element, no party, not even Congress or the Senate can hurt this country now; it’s too big. That’s why I can never take a politician seriously.

 

Congress can pass a bad law and as soon as the old Normal Majority finds it out they have it scratched off the book.

 

Even when our next war comes, we will through our shortsightedness not be prepared but that won’t be anything fatal.

 

The real energy and minds of the Normal Majority will step in and handle it and fight it through to a successful conclusion.

 

The country is not where it is today on account of any man. It is here on account of the common sense of the big Normal Majority.

 

A gentleman quoted me on the floor the other day. Another member took exception and said he objected to the remarks of Professional Joke Maker going into the Congressional Record. They are the Professional Joke Makers. Read some of the bills that they have passed. If you don’t think they ain’t Joke Makers. I could study all my life and not think up half the amount of funny things they can think of in one Session of Congress. Besides, my jokes don’t do anybody any harm. You don’t have to pay attention to them. But everyone of the Jokes those Birds make is a law and hurt somebody (generally everybody). I object to being called a Professional. I’m an amateur beside them.

 

The town with the cheapest land and most concrete can have the largest stadium.

 

The one way to detect a feeble-minded man is get one arguing on economics.

 

So much money is being spent on the campaigns that I doubt if either man, as good as they are, are worth what it will cost to elect them.

 

No nation in the history of the world was ever sitting as pretty. If we want anything, all we have to do is buy it on credit. So that leaves us without any economic problem whatever, except perhaps some day to have to pay for them. But we are certainly not thinking about that this early. Yours for more credit and longer payments.

 

There is one rule that works in every calamity. Be it pestilence, war or famine, the rich get richer and poor get poorer. The poor even help arrange it.

 

One thing about farmers’ relief: It can’t last long, for the farmers ain’t got much more to be relieved of.

 

We’ll hold the distinction of being the only Nation in the history of the world that ever went to the poor house in an automobile.

 

Don’t make the first payment on anything. First payments is what made us think we were prosperous and the other nineteen is what showed us we were broke.

 

Big business don’t go broke any more. The minute it looks bad for them, they combine with something else and issue more stock.

 

This open-door stuff is a lot of hooey. Any door is only open to those that have the best product at the cheapest money.

 

An economist is a man that can tell you anything. His guess is liable to be as good as anybody else’s, too.

 

Every nation must have its legalized form of gambling. We have our Wall Street.

 

If Wall Street paid a tax on every “game” they run, we would get enough revenue to run the government on.

 

No nation has a monopoly on good things. Each one has something that the others could well afford to adopt.

 

I guess our country holds the record for dumbness. The Pope spoke to the world this morning in three languages and we didn’t understand a one of ’em. But the minute he finished and the local stations got back to selling corn salve and pyorrhea tooth paste we were right up our intellectual alley again.

 

When some nation wants us to help ’em out they use the same old “gag,” that we should exert our “moral leadership” and, like a yap, believe it, when, as a matter of truth, no nation wants any other nation exerting a “moral leadership” over ’em even if they had one.

 

I see by the papers that they say “Germany is going insane.” I wish you could name me a nation that is competent of judging insanity.

 

I guess no individual ever invented can pass the buck as quick as a nation can.

 

In schools they have what they call intelligence tests. Well if nations held ’em I don’t believe we would be what you would call a favorite to win it.

 

I don’t care how little your country is, you got a right to run it like you want to.

 

When the big nations quit meddling then the world will have peace.

 

There’s the one thing no nation can ever accuse us of and that is secret diplomacy. Our foreign dealings are an open book. Generally a check book.

 

One thing that we do worse than any other nation, it is try and manage somebody else’s affairs.

 

Nations are just like individuals. Loan them money and you lose their friendship.

 

Before you complain, think of Peru.

 

No nation ever had two better friends than we have. You know who they are? The Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

 

A bunch of American tourists were hissed and stoned yesterday in France but not until they had finished buying.

 

We would never understand why Mexico wasn’t crazy about us. We have always had their goodwill, oil, coffee and minerals at heart.

 

Woe be to a weak nation if they live by a strong one.

 

You can take a sob story and a stick of candy and lead America right off into the Dead Sea.

 

One good thing about European nations: they can’t hate you so bad they wouldn’t use you.

 

Headlines in the papers say: “Europe criticizes U. S.” If memory serves me right we haven’t complimented them lately ourselves.

 

There is no income tax in Russia. But there’s no income.

 

Diplomats are just as essential to starting a war as soldiers are for finishing it. Take diplomacy out of a war and the thing would fall flat in a week.

 

Well, they finally stopped us from sending marines to every war that we could hear of. They are having one in Afghanistan. The thing will be over before Congress can pronounce it, much less find out where it is located.

 

There is only one sure way of stopping war, that is to see that every “statesman” has the same chance to reflect after it’s over that these boys making “poppies” have had.

 

War talk in Europe has pretty near died out on account of no international conferences being held. They haven’t got much chance of getting sore at each other.

 

Nations will give up their lives (even cheer about it). They will give up their money in order to give up their lives, but to ask one to give up their trade to prevent a war, well, that has never been done.

 

The best omen of international good-will is that conferences are getting shorter. Now if they will do away with ’em entirely there will be no war.

 

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.

 

Wars will never be a success until you have a referee and until they announce before they start just what it’s for.

 

The difference between a bandit and a patriot is a good press agent.

 

We only have one or two wars in a lifetime. But we have three meals a day. When you have helped raise the standard of cooking then you would have raised the only thing in the world that matters.

 

There has been war since the beginning of time and we are no smarter than the people that have gone before us. There is apt to be some more war.

 

Every war has been preceded by a peace conference. That’s what always starts the next war.

 

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

 

People talk peace but men give their life’s work to war. It won’t stop ‘til there is as much brains and scientific study put to aid peace as there is to promote war.

 

There is nothing that makes a nation or an individual as mad as to have somebody say, “now this is really none of my business but I am just advising you.” If I sleep with a gun under my pillow, I don’t want somebody from across the street to “advise” me that I don’t need it.

 

It takes quite a sense of humor for these people to understand us shaking hands with one hand and shooting with the other.

 

When you get into trouble five thousand miles from home you’ve got to have been looking for it.

 

Draft capital as well as men. Boys, there ain’t going to be no war.

 

Diplomats are just as essential to starting a war as soldiers are for finishing it.

 

Lots of people in Europe wondered how America could train men so quickly. Well, when you only have to train them to go only one way you can do it in half the time.

 

Here we go again! America is running true to form, fixing some other country’s business for ’em just as we always do. We mean well, but will wind up in wrong as usual.

 

We have killed more people celebrating our independence than we lost fighting for it. We would celebrate the ending of each of our wars but we haven’t got enough people to go around.

 

If nobody wants to disarm with us, we will show ’em we are right. We will shame ’em into it—if we have to sink our last life preserver to do it.

 

We have it on the best of our information that taxes will be relieved, but not until after your death.

 

Congress has passed the big inheritance tax. That gets you when you’re gone. I think it’s a good law. You had had the use of the money during your lifetime, so turn it over to the government and they can do some darn fool things with it. Maybe as foolish as the children of the deceased would. It’s only one generation from a pick handle to a putter and one more from a tuxedo to a tramp.

 

They got such a high inheritance tax on ’em that you won’t catch these old rich boys dying promiscuously like they did. This bill makes patriots out of everybody. You sure do die for your country if you die from now on.

 

A tax paid on the day you buy is not as tough as asking you for it the next year when you are broke.

 

The good old days with most of us was when we didn’t earn enough to pay an income tax.

 

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.

 

When a party can’t think of anything else they always fall back on lower taxes. It has a magic sound to a voter just like Fairyland is spoken of and dreamed of by children. But no child has ever seen it. Neither has any voter ever lived to see the day when his taxes were lowered.

 

There is a tremendous movement on to get lower taxes on earned income. Then will come the real problem. Who among us on salary are earning our income?

 

We don’t seem to be able to even check crime. Why not legalize it and put a heavy tax on it. Make the tax for robbery so high that a bandit couldn’t afford to rob anyone unless he had a lot of dough. We have taxed other industries out of business, it might work here.

 

The idea that a tax on something keeps anybody from buying it is a lot of “hooey.” They put it on gasoline all over the country and it hasn’t kept a soul at home a single night or day. You could put a dollar a gallon on and still a pedestrian couldn’t cross the street with safety without armor.

 

Put a good tax on beer and that would take care of the unemployment fund.

 

The income tax has made more liars out of the American people than golf has.

 

It’s a great country but you can’t live in it for nothing.

 

Comedians haven’t improved. Nothing has improved but taxes.

 

I see a good deal of talk from Washington about lowering the Taxes. I hope they do get ’em lowered down enough so people can afford to pay ’em.

 

You are going to need sales taxes, both Federal and State, income tax, and a lot of other kinds. It’s a great country but you can’t live in it for nothing.

 

The crime of taxation is not in the taking of it, it’s in the way that it’s spent.

 

Anybody whose pleasure is watching somebody else die is about as little use to humanity as the person being electrocuted.

 

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

 

People are marvelous in their generosity if they just know the cause is there.

 

It’s great to be great, but it’s greater to be human.

 

Indians and primitive races were the highest civilized because they were more satisfied and they depended less on each other and took less from each other.

 

Nothing makes a man broad-minded like adversity.

 

The minute a fellow gets into the Chamber of Commerce, he quits mowing his own lawn.

 

I can remember when a man could be considered respectable without belonging to a golf club.

 

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

 

A man in the country does his own thinking. Get him into town and he will be thinking second-handed.

 

Cities are like gentlemen. They are born not made.

 

The Lord so constituted everybody that no matter what color you are, you require the same amount of nourishment.

 

Great artists say that the most beautiful thing in the world is a baby. Well, the next is an old lady, for every wrinkle is a picture.

 

There is no less sickness, no less earthquakes, no less progress, no less inventions, no less morality, no less Christianity under one than the other. They are all the same. It won’t make 50 cents difference to a one of you. Unless you’re foolish enough to bet on it.

 

Call me a “rube” and a “hick,” but I’d lot rather be the man who bought the Brooklyn Bridge than the man who sold it.

 

The more you know the more you think somebody owes you a living.

 

The time ain’t far off when a woman won’t know any more than a man.

 

If you live right, death is a Joke to you as far as fear is concerned.

 

The Lord split knowledge up among his subjects about equal. The so-called ignorant is happy. You think he is happy because he don’t know any better. Maybe he is happy because he knows enough to be happy. The smart one knows a lot. That makes him unhappy because he can’t impart it to his friends. Discontent comes in proportion to knowledge.

 

Education never helped morals. The most savage people are the most moral. The smarter the guy the bigger the rascal.

 

The higher the education the higher priced drinks they become accustomed to. Prohibition will never catch up with education.

 

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

 

What all of us know put together don’t mean anything. Nothing don’t mean anything. We are here for a spell and pass on. Anyone who thinks that civilization has advanced is an egotist.

 

Fords and bathtubs have you and cleaned you. But you were just as ignorant when you got there. We know a lot of things we used to didn’t know but we don’t know any way to prevent ‘em happening.

 

Everybody is ignorant. Only on different subjects.

 

When ignorance gets started, it knows no bounds.

 

There is nothing as easy as denouncing. It don’t take much to see that something is wrong but it does take some eyesight to see what will put it right again.

 

Nowadays it is about as big a crime to be dumb as it is to be dishonest.

 

The American people are a very generous people and will forgive almost any weakness, with the possible exception of stupidity.

 

You can’t legislate intelligence and common sense into people. You can’t broaden a man’s vision if he wasn’t born with one.

 

Humanity is not yet ready for either real truth or real harmony.

 

A fanatic is always the fellow that is on the opposite side.

 

A man can fool you with his mind, and his Soul and his Heart, but if you follow his feet you will pretty near find out where he is going.

 

Nothing will spoil a big man’s life like too much truth.

 

A thing that is free is of no earthly importance.

 

Half our life is spent trying to find something to do with the time we have rushed through life trying to save.

 

Nothing is as stupid as an educated man if you get him off the thing he was educated on.

 

Nobody wants his cause near as bad as he wants to talk about his cause.

 

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

 

Modern history has proven that there has never been a will left that was carried out exactly as the maker of the money intended.

 

Nothing makes people more alike than putting a dress suit on ’em.

 

Actual knowledge of the future was never lower, but hope was never higher. Confidence will beat predictions any time.

 

History ain’t what it is. It’s what some writer wanted it to be.

 

All we hear is “What’s the matter with the country?” “What’s the matter with the world?” There ain’t but one thing wrong with every one of us in the world, and that’s selfishness.

 

The fellow sitting off looking at you can tell better how you are doing and what your prospects are than you can yourself.

 

There never was such a demand for speed, for less reason. There is not a one of us that couldn’t walk where we are going and then get there earlier than we have any business.

 

Theories are great, they sound great, but the minute you are asked to prove one in actual life, why the thing blows up.

 

The world is full of men who do big things, but when you meet ’em they are not outstanding personalities. Pretty near everybody is almost alike.

 

You can look at half the guy’s stomachs in the world, and you can see they don’t know how to order for themselves.

 

I certainly know that a comedian can only last till he either takes himself serious or his audience takes him serious, and I don’t want either one of those to happen to me till I am dead (if then).

 

I guess there is no two races of people in worse repute with everybody than the international bankers and the folks that put all those pins in new shirts.

 

I think the same fellow who started that self-made man gag started that other asinine expression, “100 per cent American.” Every human from the time he is weaned is self-made. And how do you know when a man is made anyhow? He may be only partly finished when a lot of guys call him made.

 

You can’t have a picnic unless the party carrying the basket comes.

 

Popularity is the easiest thing in the world to gain and it is the hardest thing to hold.

 

Rumor travels faster but it don’t stay put as long as truth.

 

Ain’t but one thing wrong with every one of us in the world and that’s selfishness.

 

Everybody likes to hear it straight from the boss, even if you are going to get fired.

 

If you want to ship off fat beef cattle at the end of their existence, you have got to have ’em satisfied on the range.

 

I hope we never see the day when a thing is as bad as some of our newspapers make it.

 

There is a great tendency all over the country now to be high brow. More people should work for their dinner instead of dressing for it.

 

Well, the Xmas spirit is over now. Everybody can get back to their natural dispositions. If there had been as many good wishes in the heart as there was on paper the devil would have to dig up some new clients.

 

Hunger doesn’t need much encouragement. It just keeps coming around naturally.

 

The football season is about over. Education never had a more financial year. School will commence now.

 

Banking and After Dinner Speaking are two of the most Non-essential industries we have in this country. I am ready to reform if they are.

 

When you straddle a thing, it takes a long time to explain it.

 

Nothing breaks up homes, country and nations like somebody publishing their memoirs.

 

Never was a nation founded and maintained without some kind of belief in something…and that is religion. Never mind what kind. But it’s got to be something or you will fail at the finish.

 

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

 

I bet any Sunday could be made as popular at church as Easter is if you made ‘em fashion shows too. The audience is so busy looking at each other that the preacher just as well recite Gunga Din.

 

Statistics have proven there are twenty five bath tubs sold to every Bible.

 

If they are going to argue religion in the church instead of teaching it, no wonder you see more people at a circus that at a church.

 

Whoever wrote the Ten Commandments made ’em short. They may not always be kept but they can be understood.

 

I was raised predominantly a Methodist but I have traveled so much, mixed with so many people in all parts of the world, I don’t know just now what I am. I know I have never been a non believer. But I can honestly tell you that I don’t think that any one religion is the religion.

 

Every man’s religion is good. There is none of it bad. We are all trying to arrive at the same place according to our own conscience and teachings. It don’t matter which road you take.

 

Death knows no denomination. Death draws no color line.

 

The Ministry in all denominations are the poorest paid workers in the world. They would form a union and demand more pay, but they don’t get enough to pay dues into a union so they can’t form one.

 

They were very religious people that come over here from the old country. They were very human. They would shoot a couple of Indians on their way to every prayer meeting.

 

A wife is the cheapest thing you can get in the long run in the female line.

 

“Divorces in Reno have increased over 105 per cent in the last year.” Now, that’s prosperity, for you can’t be broke and get a divorce. That’s why the poor have to live with each other. There is nothing that denotes prosperity quicker than to hear that “so and so and his wife ain’t getting along.”

 

I doubt if a charging elephant, or a rhino, is as determined or hard to check as a socially ambitious mother.

 

Golf is the only game in the world where it takes longer to explain than it does to play.

 

There is nothing effeminate about this golf thing as played by these champion women.

 

Baseball is in for a great year. It’s our national game and will always be our national game. We become a great nation under baseball and commenced to flop the minute we started to take up a lot of poor substitutes.

 

The football season is closing and college life is about over for the year. A few students will stay out the season for the dances, and some of the players may take up a couple of pipe courses and hang around till Spring practice starts, but most of the good ones will go home for the Winter to show the clippings.

 

When in doubt, tell a funny ’til you see what the other fellow is going to do.

 

Make every speaker as soon as he tells all he knows, sit down. That will shorten our speeches so much you will be out by lunch time.

 

I don’t think I ever hurt any man’s feelings by my little gags. I know I never willfully did it. When I have to do that to make a living, I will quit.

 

Terrible to have a law telling you you got to do something. But you ain’t going to do it unless there is.

 

Personally I don’t think you can make a lawyer honest by an act of the Legislature. You’ve got to work on his conscience. And his lack of a conscience is what makes him a lawyer.

 

If it wasn’t for Wills, lawyers would have to go to work at an essential employment.

 

Only one way you can beat a lawyer in a death case. That is to die with nothing.

 

All doctors should make enough out of those who are well able to pay to be able to do all work for the poor free. One thing that a poor person should never be expected to pay for is medical attention and not from an organized charity but from our best doctors. Your doctor bill should be paid like your income tax, according to what you have.

 

Best doctor in the world is the Veterinarian. He can’t ask his patients what’s the matter. He’s just got to know.

 

When a doctor has pulled you through why you always got a warm place in your heart for him.

 

There is nothing that keeps poor people poor as much as paying doctor bills.

 

Think up something for your town to celebrate. Have a parade. Americans like to parade. We are a parading nation. “Upluribus paraditorious” (some paraders).

 

Two things that tickle the fancy of our citizens, one is let them act on a committee, and the other is to promise to let him walk in a parade. What America needs is more mileage out of our parades.

 

Parades should be classed as a nuisance and participants should be subject to a term in prison. Even the people in them hate them.

 

If we really wanted to honor our boys, why didn’t we let them sit on the reviewing stands and make the people march those fifteen miles? They didn’t want to parade, they wanted to go home and rest.

 

History will record: “America, a nation that flourished from 1900 to 1942, conceived many odd inventions to getting somewhere, but could think of nothing to do when they got there.”

 

You would be surprised what there is to see in this great country within 200 miles of where any of us live. I don’t care what state or what town.

 

Trouble with American transportation is that you can get somewhere quicker than you can think of a reason for going there. What we need now is a new excuse to go somewhere.