Great Throughts Treasury

"It's the greatest game I ever saw. You can't lose. Everybody buys to sell and nobody buys to keep. What's worrying me is who is going to be the last owner. It's just like an auction; the only one stuck is the last one."

"I've often said there's nothing better for the inside of a man than the outside of a horse."

"Jester: I can make a joke about any subject. King: Make a joke about me. Jester: The king is not a subject."

"Just addressed the California State Legislature and helped them pass a bill to form a lawyers' association to regulate their conduct. 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 conscience is what makes him a lawyer."

"Just been talking today out here to all the Senators investigating these stock swindles and overcapitalizations. There has been hundreds of millions lost. There ought to be some form of guardianship for people that buy all this junk. Education won't do it. (The buyers are) the ones we have educated up till they are just smart enough to fall for everything that comes along."

"Just put me in a place where I can watch Congress spend my money."

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

"Just read the farm relief bill. It's just a political version of Einstein's last theory. If a farmer could understand it, he certainly would know more than to farm. He would be a professor at Harvard."

"Land taxes is the thing. (This land is taxed at $60 an acre, same as it was taxed when wheat was $2.50 a Bushel. Now wheat is two bits and it's still taxed at $60.) They got so high that there is no chance to make anything. Not only land but all property tax. You see in the old days, why the only thing they knew how to tax was land, or a house. Well, that condition went along for quite awhile, so even today the whole country tries to run its revenue on taxes on land. They never ask if the land makes anything. It's land ain't it? Well tax it then."

"Last year we said, 'Things can't go on like this', and they didn't, they got worse."

"Law is complications and complications are law. If everything was just plain there wouldn't be any lawyers."

"Lead your life so you wouldn't be ashamed to sell the family parrot to the town gossip."

"Legalize racing in every State. Sure people will bet, but they get to see the horses run and you certain can't see General Motors and General Electric and General Utility run when you bet on them."

"Let advertisers spend the same amount of money improving their product that they do on advertising and they wouldn't have to advertise it."

"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."

"Lettin' the cat outta the bag is a whole lot easier 'n puttin' it back in."

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

"Live in such a way that you would not be ashamed to sell your parrot to the town gossip."

"Live your life so that whenever you lose it, you're ahead."

"Living close eyes of the dead, the dead open the eyes of the living"

"Lobbyists have more offices in Washington than the President. You see, the President only tells Congress what they should do. Lobbyists tell'em what they will do."

"Long ago when men cursed and beat the ground with sticks, it was called witchcraft. Today it's called golf."

"Lord, let me live until I die."

"Lord, the money we do spend on Government and it's not one bit better than the government we got for one-third the money twenty years ago."

"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."

"Make crime pay. Become a lawyer."

"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."

"Many a politician wishes there was a law to burn old records."

"Millions and millions of people don't pay an income tax, because they don't earn enough to pay on one, but you pay a land tax whether it ever did or ever will earn you a penny. You should pay on things that you buy outside of bare necessities. I think this sales tax is the best tax we have had in years."

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

"Mona Lisa is the only beauty who went through history and retained her reputation."

"Money and women are the most sought after and the least known about of any two things we have."

"Money, horse racing and women: three things the boys just can't figure out."

"More men have been elected between Sundown and Sunup than ever were elected between Sunup and Sundown."

"More words ain't good for anything in the world only to bring on more argument."

"Most men are about as happy as they make up their minds to be."

"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."

"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."

"My father was one eighth Cherokee and my mother one fourth Cherokee, which I figure makes me about an eight cigar-store Injun."

"My idea of an honest man is a fellow who declares income tax on money he sold his vote for."

"My little movies have been fairly clean, but when the well-chosen roar against pictures come, I didn’t get sore, and rise on my hind legs and write any editorials. I knew it was coming to us and took it in good faith for I knew in the long run it would do good, and if this old boy don't think that the audience will still laugh at the lawyers at the Bijou Theatre just let him book me for a lecture on lawyers at the Bijou, and come and sit and listen to 'em roar."

"My sympathy is naturally with the little fellow that has struggled along all these years and give the best he could for the money. He must have given pretty good value, for none of them got rich, so that showed he didn't cheat anybody."

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

"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."

"Never blame a legislative body for not doing something. When they do nothing, they don't hurt anybody. When they do something is when they become dangerous."

"Never kick a cow chip on a hot day."

"Never let yesterday use up too much of today."

"Never miss a good chance to shut up."

"Never slap a man who's chewing tobacco."