I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts.
Will RogersRead
If you make any money, the government shoves you in the creek once a year with it in your pockets, and all that don't get wet you can keep.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote humorously critiques how taxation affects people's earnings.
Will Rogers uses humor to illustrate the burden of taxes, suggesting that earning money feels like a futile struggle against government intervention, where one can only retain what isn't lost to taxes. The metaphor of being 'shoved in the creek' implies a chaotic and unfair financial landscape where the government takes its cut before individuals can truly enjoy their earnings.
Themes
TaxesMoneyGovernmentHumorFinance
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about taxation at a community meeting, this quote can lighten the mood.
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
If I were asked to think up a new name for temptation, I should recommend the word 'doorknob', because what are these protuberances put on doors for if not to tempt us.
Gunter GrassRead
You know, it is a terrible thing to appear on television, because people think that you actually know what you're talking about.
David AttenboroughRead
There aren't many downsides to being rich, other than paying taxes and having relatives asking for money. But being famous, that's a 24 hour job right there.
Bill MurrayRead
I don't feel that no big stone should be put over my head, saying he did this, he did that. Unless there's something that I really did do. I believe I'm just ordinary. And I'd like for people to think of me that way, as just a guy that tried. Wanted to be loved by other people because he loved people.
B. B. KingRead
I may be drunk, Miss, but in the morning I will be sober and you will still be ugly.
Winston ChurchillRead
It is impossible to obtain a conviction for sodomy from an English jury. Half of them don't believe that it can physically be done, and the other half are doing it.
Winston ChurchillRead