"The movies are the only business where you can go out front and applaud yourself."

Work

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Thematic Reflection

This quotation examines the core nature of Work as articulated by Will Rogers. Within historical and literary traditions, reflections on Work provide actionable mental models, challenging individuals to evaluate personal ethics, self-discipline, and daily actions.

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About Will Rogers

William Penn Adair Rogers was a Native American vaudeville performer, actor, and humorous social commentator. He was born as a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, in the Indian Territory, now part of Oklahoma, and is known as "Oklahoma's Favorite Son". As an entertainer and humorist, he traveled around the world three times, made 71 films, and wrote more than 4,000 nationally syndicated newspaper columns. By the mid-1930s, Rogers was hugely popular in the United States for his leading political wit and was one of the higher paid Hollywood film stars. He died in 1935 with aviator Wiley Post when their small airplane crashed on takeoff from a lagoon near Utqiaġvik, Alaska, in northern Alaska.

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More by Will Rogers

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

— Will Rogers
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"If you can build a business up big enough, it's respectable."

— Will Rogers
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"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."

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

— Will Rogers
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More about Work

"It's a terribly hard job to spend a billion dollars and get your money's worth."

— George M. Humphrey
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"In our brief national history we have shot four of our presidents, worried five of them to death, impeached one and hounded another out of office. And when all else fails, we hold an election and assassinate their character."

— P. J. O'Rourke
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"A person who has not done one half his day's work by ten o clock, runs a chance of leaving the other half undone."

— Emily Bronte
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"Meet some people who care about poetry the way you do. You'll have that readership. Keep going until you know you're doing work that's worthy. And then see what happens. That's my advice."

— Philip Levine
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