Great Throughts Treasury

"We have some great ideas, but most of 'em come too late to do us any good."

"We have the best Congress money can buy."

"We know lots of things we didn't use to know but we don't know any way to prevent 'em from happening."

"We know that everybody should 'share the wealth.' Now, Huey's [Sen. Huey Long] plan to share the wealth, it's a marvelous idea. Huey's a smart guy, don't overlook that. And our own downright conscience tells us that there's no reason why anybody should have more than you. There ain't nothing wrong with the plan, only this one little defect: Nobody ain't going to share it with you, that's all. I know a lot of tremendously rich people that should share their wealth with me, but they just don't see it that way. And I know folks that ain't got as much as I have that think I ought to share it with them. Well, I just can't hardly see it their way either. That is, even if I can see it that way, I'm not doing it."

"We live in an age of 'urge'. We do nothing till somebody shoves us."

"We may elevate ourselves but we should never reach so high that we would every forget those who helped us get there."

"We never will have any prosperity that is free from speculation till we pass a law that every time a broker or person sells something, he has got to have it sitting there in a bucket, or a bag, or a jug, or a cage, or a rat trap, or something, depending on what it is he is selling. We are continually buying something that we never get from a man that never had it."

"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."

"We owe more money than any Nation in the World, and we are LOWERING TAXES. When is the time to pay off a debt if it is not when you are doing well? You let a Politician return home from Washington and announce, 'Boys we lowered your taxes. We had to borrow the money to do it, but we did it.' Say, they would elect him for life."

"We should never reach so high that we would ever forget those who helped us get there."

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

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

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

"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."

"Well I wish he could have read a so-called humorist's mail. Never did I have so much approving mail on one article, and not a half dozen dissenting ones, and they were from lawyers. Every layman approved. It batted about 98 per cent."

"Well now let's take up the issues one by one. In the first place if there had been no truth at all in the statement I made there would never have been any yell about it. Now as to it being the dominant question, Mr. Rogers didn’t say that it was the dominant question, he said that it should be the dominant question. In other words the lawyers would give their eye to have the thing cleaned up, and they will admit that it would be of more benefit to their profession to have the crooks driven out than to have done any other thing."

"Well the lawyers of the. American Bar Association convention are leaving us. Think they had a good time. Like all conventions, they didn't do a thing. No convention ever did anything. If this country ever becomes civilized the first thing eliminated would be people gadding around to get to a convention. And the humorous thing about `em is they always wait and hold `em in the hottest weather. Convention slogans should be, Let's meet and perspire together."

"Well, all I know is just what I read in the papers or what I run into prowling around. A couple of weeks ago out here in the City of Angels we had quite a distinguished gathering. They called themselves the American Bar Association, and they was quite an array. I went down one night just as the thing was getting started and did some rough and tumbled blathering for 'em. What I mean is I made a speech."

"Well, all I know is just what I read in the papers. And say I had to read plenty in the paper the other day. There is a paper got out in Detroit, Michigan. It's called the Legal Record. It says it's a paper dedicated to the interests of the legal profession. That dedication that's printed on its front page in big type shows that it's a paper that has nothing to do with news or facts, and I like the honesty of it. It tells you right off we take nothing but the lawyer's side. (For there ain't any other side.) Well the headline as follows to wit, habus corpus, nolle prose, change of venue as follows: The legal profession as a humorist sees it."

"Well, all I know is what I read in the papers."

"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."

"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."

"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."

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

"What the country needs is dirtier fingernails and cleaner minds."

"What the Secretary of Agriculture is trying to do is to teach the farmer corn acreage control, and the hogs birth control, and one is just as hard to make understand it as the other."

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

"What's the matter with the world? Why, there ain't nothing but one word wrong with every one of us, and that's selfishness."

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

"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 all children. But no child has ever seen it; neither has any voter ever lived to see the day when his taxes were lowered. Presidents have been promising lower taxes since Washington crossed the Delaware by hand in a row boat. But our taxes have gotten bigger and their boats have gotten larger until now the President crosses the Delaware in his private yacht."

"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."

"When I die, I want to die like my grandfather who died peacefully in his sleep. Not screaming like all the passengers in his car."

"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." I am so proud of that I can hardly wait to die so it can be carved. And when you come to my grave you will find me sitting there, proudly reading it."

"When ignorance gets started it knows no bounds."

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

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

"When should a college athlete turn pro? Not until he has earned all he can in college as an amateur."

"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."

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

"When the Judgment Day comes civilization will have an alibi, "I never took a human life, I only sold the fellow the gun to take it with.""

"When the Okies left Oklahoma and moved to California, they raised the average intelligence levels in both states."

"When Wall Street took that tail spin, you had to stand in line to get a window to jump out of, and speculators were selling space for bodies in the East River... You know there is nothing that hollers as quick and as loud as a gambler."

"When you are dissatisfied and would like to go back to youth, think of algebra."

"When you are satisfied, you are successful. For that's all there is to success is satisfaction."

"When you figure it right down, none of us are in a really essential business but the farmer, and he raises so much that even his business is partly non-essential."

"When you find yourself in a hole, quit digging."

"When you get into trouble 5,000 miles from home, you’ve got to have been looking for it."

"When you give a lesson in meanness to a critter or a person, don't be surprised if they learn their lesson."

"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."

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