“I never met a man I didn’t like.” Many people have made similar statements, but when Will Rogers said it, we believed him.

William Penn Adair Rogers was born in 1879 in Oologah Indian Territory (now Oklahoma), and was both a cowboy and an Indian; part Cherokee on both sides of his family. As for the cowboy side, Rogers was a champion with a lasso, and even set some performance records. He started his modern entertainment career in vaudeville, and progressed to a few movies and wrote editorials for the New York Times. He was best known for his observational wit, and became the voice of the Everyman, with an iron hand of political and corporate commentary, cloaked in the velvet glove of his unique brand of homespun humor. “We only get to vote on some man;” he quipped, “We never get to vote on what he is to do.” The most significant thing about Rogers’ many quotes (and those tenuously attributed to him) is not just what was said, but that they’re more poignant today than ever.

America lost its most constructive critic in a plane crash near Point Barrow, close to Alaska, in 1935. Will Rogers was 55.