I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts.
Will RogersRead
Anything important is never left to the vote of the people. We only get to vote on some man; we never get to vote on what he is to do.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote reflects the idea that significant decisions are often made by a select few rather than through popular vote.
Will Rogers emphasizes the limitation of democracy by suggesting that while people can choose their leaders, they do not have a say in the crucial decisions those leaders will make. This highlights the gap between electoral power and the substance of governance, implying that real agency lies beyond the ballot box.
Themes
DemocracyLeadershipDecision MakingGovernancePolitics
In practice
Example use cases
Using this quote to spark a discussion on the limitations of democratic systems at a political science seminar.
More from Will Rogers
All quotes βPeople who fly into a rage always make a bad landing.
Will RogersRead
Why don't they pass a constitutional amendment prohibiting anybody from learning anything? If it works as well as prohibition did, in five years Americans would be the smartest race of people on Earth.
Will RogersRead
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.
Will RogersRead
Let advertisers spend the same amount of money improving their product that they do on advertising and they wouldn't have to advertise it.
Will RogersRead
The man 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?'
Will RogersRead
Similar quotes
The evidence for our New Testament writings is ever so much greater than the evidence for many writings of classical authors, the authenticity of which no one dreams of questioning. And if the New Testament were a collection of secular writings, their authenticity would generally be regarded as beyond all doubt.
F. F. BruceRead
Zen says that if you drop knowledge - and within knowledge everything is included; your name, your identity, everything, because this has been given to you by others - if you drop all that has been given by others, you will have a totally different quality to your being: innocence. This will be a crucifixion of the persona, the personality, and there will be a resurrection of your innocence. You will become a child again, reborn.
RajneeshRead
Utopia was here at last: its novelty had not yet been assailed by the supreme enemy of a ll Utopias - boredom.
Arthur C. ClarkeRead
Religion has actually convinced people that there's an invisible man living in the sky.
George CarlinRead
What is life without incompatible realities?
Ursula K. Le GuinRead
To think that the affairs of this life always remain in the same state is a vain presumption; indeed they all seem to be perpetually changing and moving in a circular course. Spring is followed by summer, summer by autumn, and autumn by winter, which is again followed by spring, and so time continues its everlasting round. But the life of man is ever racing to its end, swifter than time itself, without hope of renewal, unless in the next that is limitless and infinite.
Miguel De CervantesRead