Great Throughts Treasury

"Give her a day, and then in return Momma gives you the other 364."

"Go out on a limb - that's where the fruit is."

"God made man a little lower than the angels, and he has been getting a little lower ever since."

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

"Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment."

"Got a nice letter the other day from Barney Baruch. I had about a year and a half ago, just before the crash (October, 1929), sorter half way decided to get a little dab of some kind of stock. Everybody all around me was just rolling so in profits, that it made the pay I get for my joke telling seem mighty little. I had never, or haven’t yet, got a dollar that I didn’t tell a joke for, either on stage or paper, so I knowing Barney mighty well, and having a mighty high regard for him personally, so in my little talk with him I asked him to invest in his own way a little dab that I thought I could spare. Well I had to naturally tell him something of my affairs, so I told him what I owed, mostly on unimproved Real Estate. Well he liked to have thrown me out of his Wall Street Office. You owe that much, and you want to take some of your money and buy stocks? You go home and pay your debts. Lord knows how long it will take you to do 'em. But pay what you can of 'em. You won't like this advice, no man does. He don't want to pay his debts as long as he thinks he can make an easy dollar in something else. I wouldent invest a dollar for you anyhow, things are too high, they don't look good. Now go start paying on your debts. That's the nearest I ever came to owning stock. (I mean outside of a few horses, and cattle.) Less than a month from the day I was in his office the Bust came. So every few months he writes me and asks me how I am making out on the debts, and how much I got 'em whittled down."

"Government spending? I don't know what it's all about. I don't know any more about this thing than an economist does, and, God knows, he doesn't know much."

"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."

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

"Here is my Farm Relief bill: Every time a Southerner plants nothing on his farm but cotton year after year, and the Northerner nothing but wheat or corn, why, take a hammer and hit him twice right between the eyes. You may dent your hammer, but it will do more real good than all the bills you can pass in a year."

"Here it is, a New Year. We got to make some resolutions, as well as interest and tax payments in this joyful season. It's the start of a New Year of trials and tribulations, and if everybody that does anything gets caught, it will be mostly trials."

"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."

"Here's another way of putting it. Roosevelt wants recovery to start at the bottom. In other words, by a system of high taxes, he wants business to help the little fellow to get started and get some work, and then pay business back by buying things when he's at work. Business says, 'Let everybody alone. Let business alone, and quit monkeying with us, and we'll get everything going for you, and if we prosper, naturally the worker will prosper. That's exactly what business says, and they're justified from their angle in saying that."

"Heroing is one of the shortest-lived professions there is."

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

"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.”"

"Horsemanship through the history of all nations has been considered one of the highest accomplishments. You can't pass a park without seeing a statue of some old codger on a horse. It must be to his bravery, you can tell it's not to his horsemanship."

"Horses raise what the farmer eats and eats what the farmer raises. You can't plow the ground and get gasoline."

"Huey Long [Louisiana Senator], who is the king of the planners, had tough going this last week, with his 'Share the Wealth' plan. Interior Secretary (Harold) Ickes and Relief Commissioner [Harry] Hopkins, who handles more money than any man in the world, they said, No, Huey, you're not goin' to share any of our wealth. Well, that's the wealth Huey was kinda figurin' on sharin'. You know, the national problem in this country today is not who shall be relieved and whose money shall relieve him, but who shall be the one that plays Santa Claus and actually hands out the presents. That's the main problem today, it's who hands out the presents."

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

"Hundreds and hundreds of beautiful horses in the parade and a man without a silver saddle is a vagrant."

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

"I am a great believer in high-priced people. If a thing cost a lot it may not be any better, but it adds a certain amount of class that the cheap thing can never approach; in the long run it's the higher-priced things that are the cheapest."

"I am a peace man. I haven't got any use for wars and there is no more humor in 'em than there is reason for 'em."

"I am always going to do my best, no matter where I am."

"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."

"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."

"I am not a member of any organized party - I am a Democrat."

"I am not against (bull fighting). Every nation has their own affairs and own sports. Some nations like to see blood, and some like to see their victims suffer from speculation. It's all in your point of view. They kill the bull very quick. Wall Street lets you live and suffer."

"I am proud of the fact there is not a human being that I have got it in for. I never met a man I didn’t like."

"I argue with wife over what little pieces of real estate investments we should try to pay on and hold, and which to let go back. We always said, ‘Put it in land, and you can always walk on it.’ We did, but no buyers would walk on it with us."

"I arrived at my hut in Beverly Hills just in time to keep real estate men from plotting off and selling my front yard. They will sell you anything or anybody's in the world as long as they can get a first payment... It used to be only Iowa that was out here but now they have three or four adjoining states interested and they are here, too. Real estate agents -- you never saw as many in your life; they are as thick as bootleggers."

"I belong to no organized party. I am a Democrat."

"I bet after seeing us, George Washington would sue us for calling him "father.""

"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."

"I bet you if I had met him [Trotsky] and had a chat with him, I would have found him a very interesting and human fellow, for I never yet met a man that I didn’t like. When you meet people, no matter what opinion you might have formed about them beforehand, why, after you meet them and see their angle and their personality, why, you can see a lot of good in all of them."

"I can remember way back when a liberal was generous with his own money."

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

"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 do honestly believe the Republicans have reformed and want to do better. But whether they have done it in time to win the election is another thing. The old voter is getting so he wants to be saved before October every election year."

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

"I don’t care how poor and inefficient a little country is - they like to run their own business. I know men that would make my wife a better husband than I am but, darn it, I’m not going to give her to ’em."

"I don’t make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts."

"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."

"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."

"I don't care how poor and inefficient a little country is; they like to run their own business. I know men that would make my wife a better husband than I am, but, darn it, I'm not going to give her to 'em."

"I don't know how I got over the hill without getting to the top."

"I don't know what humor is."

"I don't know what's going to be done about it. One time the Government split up Standard Oil into 31 parts, and in two years each one of the 31 was bigger than the original. So it looked like they just thrived on being split up."

"I don't see why a man shouldn't pay an inheritance tax. If a Country is good enough to pay taxes to while you are living, it's good enough to pay in after you die. By the time you die you should be so used to paying taxes that it would just be almost second nature to you."