Monday, November 2, 2009

Birthday quotes


Buffalo
Originally uploaded by paynehollow
Oh, my, what a rich month November is! At least for those of us who love words. At least FOUR of my most quotable people celebrate their birthdays in November. November 4th is the birth date of Will Rogers (1879-1935), American humorist and populist, November 8th is the birth date of Dorothy Day (1897-1980), who started the Catholic Worker Movement, November 26th is the birth date of Sojourner Truth (1797-1883), famed civil rights leader for both women and blacks during our slavery years and November 30th is Mark Twain's (1835-1910) birth date.

As someone who loves quotable people, these people are at the top of my list and I thought I'd honor them with some excerpts.

First, WILL ROGERS...


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.

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.

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.

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.

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

A fool and his money are soon elected.

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.

Never kick a cow chip on a hot day.

1 comment:

John said...

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


Amen. The truly civilized society respects the rights of the minority of one against the overwhelming majority.