"It doesn't much signify whom one marries, for one is sure to find out the next morning that it was someone else."

"In the early days of the Indian Territory, there were no such things as birth certificates. You being there was certificate enough."

"Liberty doesn't work as well in practice as it does in speeches."

"A man can learn only two ways, one by reading, and the other by association with smarter people."

"People are getting smarter nowadays; they are letting lawyers, instead of their conscience, be their guide."

"Things will get better -- despite our efforts to improve them."

"Everybody is ignorant -- only on different subjects."

"Everything is funny as long as it is happening to somebody else."

"It's great to be great, but it's greater to be human."

"We can't all be heroes, because somebody has to sit on the curb and clap as they go by."

"The main thing about being a hero is to know when to die."

"Being a hero is about the shortest lived profession on earth."

"Be thankful we're not getting all the government we're paying for."

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

"The only time people dislike gossip is when you gossip about them."

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

"My ancestors didn't come over on the Mayflower, but they were there to meet the boat."

"America is a great country, but you can't live in it for nothing."

"I wonder if it isn't just cowardice instead of generosity that makes us give tips."

"Don't gamble; take all your savings and buy some good stock and hold it till it goes up. If it don't go up, don't buy it."

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

"Lord, let me live until I die."

"There is nothing so stupid as an educated man, if you get him off the thing he was educated in."

"There isn't any finer folks living than a Republican that votes the Democratic ticket."

"The Republicans have their splits right after election and Democrats have theirs just before an election."

"An economist's guess is liable to be as good as anybody else s."

"Every time a woman leaves off something she looks better, but every time a man leaves off something he looks worse."

"The nation is prosperous on the whole, but how much prosperity is there in a hole?"

"I never met a man I didn't like."

"One ad is worth more to a paper than forty editorials."

"The worst thing that happens to you may be the best thing for you if you don't let it get the best of you."

"The short memories of American voters is what keeps our politicians in office."

"You never know how much a man can't remember until he is called as a witness."

"In Hollywood the woods are full of people that learned to write, but evidently can't read. If they could read their stuff, they'd stop writing."

"All I know is just what I read in the papers."

"I never expected to see the day when girls would get sunburned in the places they do today."

"Broad-minded is just another way of saying a fellow is too lazy to form an opinion."

"A difference of opinion is what makes horse racing and missionaries."

"Pain is such an uncomfortable feeling that even a tiny amount of it is enough to ruin every enjoyment."

"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."

"We are the first nation in the history of the world to go to the poorhouse in an automobile."

"There is no more independence in politics than there is in jail."

"I'm not a member of any organized political party, I'm a Democrat!"

"I tell you folks, all politics is applesauce."

"No party is as bad as its leaders."

"Politics has become so expensive that it takes a lot of money even to be defeated."

"Politics is not worrying this country one-tenth as much as where to find a parking space."

"The more you read and observe about this politics thing, the more you've got to admit that each party's worse than the other. The one that's out always looks the best."

"The trouble with practical jokes is that very often they get elected."

"This country has gotten where it is in spite of politics, not by the aid of it. That we have carried as much political bunk as we have and still survived shows we are a super nation."

"The reason political party platforms are so long is that when you straddle anything it takes a long time to explain it."

"I like to hear a man talk about himself because then I never hear anything, but good."

"Get someone else to blow your horn and the sound will carry twice as far."

"You can't say that civilization don't advance... for in every war they kill you a new way."

"One revolution is like one cocktail, it just gets you organized for the next."

"Our public men are speaking every day on something, but they ain't saying anything."

"If Stupidity got us into this mess, then why can't it get us out?"

"There ain't nothing that breaks up homes, country, and nations like somebody publishing their memoirs."

"Everything is changing. People are taking the comedians seriously and the politicians as a joke."

"Income tax has made more liars out of the American people than golf."

"The only difference between death and taxes is that death doesn't get worse every time Congress meets."

"The Income Tax has made more liars out of the American people than golf has."

"The income tax has made liars out of more Americans than golf. Even when you make a tax form out on the level, you don't know when it's through if you are a crook or a martyr."

"Even when you make a tax form out on the level, you do not know when it is through if you are a crook or a martyr."

"Half our life is spent trying to find something to do with the time we have rushed through life trying to save."

"If you ever injected truth into politics you would have no politics."

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

"The person with the best job in the country is the vice president. All he has to do is get up every morning and say, How is the president?"

"It's not what you pay a man, but what he costs you that counts."

"Even if you are on the right track, you will get run over if you just sit there."

"There's only one thing that can kill the movies, and that's education."

"Communism to me is one-third practice and two-thirds explanation."

"Communism is like prohibition, it is a good idea, but it won't work."

"There should be one day when there is open season on senators."

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

"With Congress, every time they make a joke it's a law, and every time they make a law it's a joke."

"Everybody is ignorant only on different subjects."

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

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

"There is no credit to being a comedian, when you have the whole Government working for you. All you have to do is report the facts. I dont even have to exaggerate."

"We can make this thing into a Party, instead of a Memory."

"Youve got to be [an] optimist to be a Democrat, and youve got to be a humorist to stay one."

"I am not a member of any organized partyI am a Democrat."

"And kid Congress and the Senate, dont scold em. They are just children thats never grown up. They dont like to be corrected in company. Dont send messages to em, send candy."

"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 didnt want any outside fellow contributing. Well, he had me wrong. Compared to them Im an amateur, and the thing about my jokes is that they dont hurt anybody. You can say theyre not funny or theyre terrible or theyre good or whatever it is, but they dont do no harm. But with Congressevery time they make a joke its a law. And every time they make a law its a joke."

"I originated a remark many years ago that I think has been copied more than any little thing that Ive every said, and I used it in the FOLLIES of 1922. I said America has a unique record. We never lost a war and we never won a conference in our lives. I believe that we could without any degree of egotism, single-handed lick any nation in the world. But we cant confer with Costa Rica and come home with our shirts on."

"I have always said that a conference was held for one reason only, to give everybody a chance to get sore at everybody else. Sometimes it takes two or three conferences to scare up a war, but generally one will do it."

"I have no Politics. I am for the Party that is out of Power, no matter which one it is. But I will give you my word that, in case of my appointment, I will not be a Republican; I will do my best to pull with you, and not embarrass you. In fact, my views on European affairs are so in accord with You, Mr. President, that I might almost be suspected of being a Democrat."

"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 dident 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."