Great Throughts Treasury

"See they conducted experiments on convicts ... I don't know on what grounds they reason a man in jail is a bigger liar than one out of jail ... The chances are telling the truth is what got him there... It would be a big aid to humanity, but it will never be, for already the politicians are up in arms against it... It would wreck the very foundation on which our political government is run... If you ever injected truth into politics you'd have no politics … Even the ministers are denouncing it now… Humanity is not yet ready for either real truth or real harmony."

"See what will happen if you don’t stop biting your fingernails?"

"See where Congress passed a two billion dollar bill to relieve bankers' mistakes. You can always count on us helping those who have lost part of their fortune, but our whole history records nary a case where the loan was for the man who had absolutely nothing. Our theory is to help only those who can get along, even if they don't get a loan."

"Senators are a never-ending source of amusement, amazement, and discouragement."

"So cheer up. Let's all be friends again. One of the evils of democracy is you have to put up with the man you elect whether you want him or not. That's why we call it democracy."

"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."

"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 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."

"So live that you wouldn't be ashamed to sell the family parrot to the town gossip."

"So when all the yielding and objections is over, the other Senator said, "I object to the remarks of a professional joker being put into the Congressional Record." Taking a dig at me, see? They didn't want any outside fellow contributing. Well, he had me wrong. Compared to them I'm an amateur, and the thing about my jokes is that they don't hurt anybody. You can say they're not funny or they're terrible or they're good or whatever it is, but they don't do no harm. But with Congress - every time they make a joke it's a law. And every time they make a law it's a joke."

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

"Some people try to turn back their odometers. Not me, I want people to know "why" I look this way. I've traveled a long way and some of the roads weren't paved."

"Somebody is always telling us in the paper 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. Trace any war and you will find some nation was trying to tell some other nation how to run their business. All these nations are interfering with some other nation's personal affairs but with an eye to business. Why don't we let the rest of the world act like it wants to."

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

"Spinnin' a rope is fun, if your neck ain't in it."

"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."

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

"Steak on the plate went up. Steak on the hoof went down."

"Strangers are just friends I haven't met yet."

"Successful colleges will start laying plans for a new stadium; unsuccessful ones will start hunting a new coach."

"Sure must be a great consolation to the poor people who lost their stock in the late crash to know that it has fallen in the hands of Mr. Rockefeller, who will take care of it and see it has a good home and never be allowed to wander around unprotected again. 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."

"Take the diplomacy out of war and the thing would fall flat in a week."

"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."

"Technocracy wants to do everything by machinery... Machinery is doing just fine. If it can't kill you, it will put you out of work."

"Ten men in our country could buy the whole world and ten million can't buy enough to eat."

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

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

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

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

"The banker, the lawyer, and the politician are still our best bets for a laugh. Audiences haven’t changed at all, and neither has the three above professions. And incidentally, comedians haven’t improved. Nothing has improved but taxes."

"The bankers just got a good cussing by everybody for loaning too much money. Well, they got some awful nice buildings. So when a banker fails, he fails in splendor."

"The best doctor in the world is a veterinarian. He can't ask his patients what is the matter - he's got to just know."

"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."

"The best way out of a difficulty is through it."

"The best way to make a fire with two sticks is to make sure one of them is a match."

"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."

"The country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session as when the baby gets hold of a hammer."

"The country has gone sane and got back to horses."

"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."

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

"The day of the guy working for himself is past. We are living in an age of Mergers. When your business is not doing good you combine with something and sell more stock. The poor little fellow, he can't combine with anything but the Sheriff in case he is going broke, which he generally is. But Big Business merges with another that's not going good and both do nothing together. But it's one of the mental weaknesses of the American people that if two things go together they think it must be great. They don't know how it will be financially, but they know that the stock will go up, and that's all they think about, never mind the dividends."

"The Democrats and the Republicans are equally corrupt where money is concerned. It's only in the amount where the Republicans excel."

"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."

"The Democrats ran on "Honesty" and I told 'em at the time they would never get anywhere. It was too radical for politics. The Republicans ran on "Common Sense" and the returns showed that there were 8 million more people in the United States who had "Common Sense" enough not to believe that there was "Honesty" in politics."

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

"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 difference between death and taxes is death doesn’t get worse every time Congress meets."

"The difference between our rich and poor grows greater every year. Our distribution of wealth is getting more uneven all the time. A man can make a million and he is on every page in the morning. But it never tells you who gave up that million he got. You can’t get money without taking it from somebody."

"The English should give Ireland home rule - and reserve the motion picture rights."